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EDWIN C. HICKMAN 



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A. W. ELDER, PRINTER, 
LEXINGTON, KY. 

1854. 



f 5 11*4- 



Entered according to Act of- Congress, in the year 1854. 

BY EDWIN C. HICKMAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, 

for the District of Kentucky. 



A. yr. ELDER, PRINTER, 

Upper Street, Lexington, ;e:7. 



PREFACE. 



The following Scraps have been written, dther tinder 
the excitement of the occasion to which they owe their 
origin, or with the double object of saving those 
'^fragments'' of time not employed in more useful pur- 
suits, ''that nothing may be lost," and pf giving a 
healthful current of thought to the mind: 

*'T is the main art of j^le.to manage well 
The restless mind." 

The author should, perhaps, also acknowledge that 
he has indulged an aspiration 1n regard to his own 
country, similar to that expressed by Burns in regai^d 
lo,o1d Scotland: 

'a wish, (I mind its power,) 



A wish, that to my latest hour 

Will strongly heave my breast, 
That I, for poor an Id Scotland's sake, 
Some useful plan or book could, make, 
Or sing a sang at least.'' 

"While he has endeavored to cultivate a pure style, he 

.-has felt a greater solicitude tg express a pure sentiment. 
lAow far he has succeeded in either, or both, remains 

■Sov the public to judge. 

Some will, perhaps, ask, \>hy wer^ these Scraps, 
written for the amusement of an idle hour, oJbtruded 

♦ on the public? From motives kindred to those which' 
influenced the poor widow to cast her "two mitfs'^ into 
the treasury of the Lord's house — and, also, from a 
feeling, indigenous to the human heart, to leave behind 
some trace ^f itiSQxistence which, like fossil exuviae,. 



f 



4 PREFACE. 

casually exposed to view in after ages, the contemplatiye 
mind regards not altogether with indifference, as hav- 
ing been once instinct ^ith life and spirit. | - 

The author, like the mother of Moses, commits the 
child of his bosom to the current of time — with much 
solicitude for its safety, and not without gloomy fore- 
bodings as to its destiny. 

Near Joi^^es' Nursery, Ky.? 
January, 1 864. 



1 



SCRAPS, &C.., 



-«— o-®-«» — *- 



THE HARP OF DAYID. 
[137 Psalm.] 

Harp, Harp of tlie Psalmist, most glad would! take thee, 

From grief's weeping willow by Babylon's stream; 
Fain, fain would I strike on thy chords to awake thee 

From sorrow's dull sleep long disturbed with sad dream. 
No, not for the scoffer, who seeks, in derision, 

'•The words of a song'*' sung by Zion, whose theme 
Was Israel's glory when, prophet's rapt vision 

Foresaw that a Savior v/ould come to redeem; 
Ye daughters of Zion, ''in land of a stranger/' 

No longer, as captives, from singing refrain; 
For He whom the Magi adored in a manger, 

^s coming again over Judah to reign: 
Nopiore to be scoffed at, and hailed a pretender. 

No longer a suff'rer "acquainted with grief;" 
He cometli from Heaven, the Lord with great splendor, 

Of all the brig-ht hierarchs, Sovereim and chief. 
Hark! heard ye that Harp sound? Unseen, David's fin- 
gers 

Are tuning his harp-strings to strike a new song; 
Once more, in Jerus'lem his pure spirit lingers 

To rouse her lost sons, sunk in bondage so long! 
That Harp, o'er the waters of life's bitter fountain. 

Like Moses, the branch of enchantment shall throw, 
And, purer and fresher than rill from the mountain, 



The full streams of gladness shall instantly flow 



f 



[6] 

That Harp sounds again — O Jerusalem, if ever 
Unmindful of thee may I silence then keep, 

And my right hand long used in harp-playiag, never 
Again o'er its chords rapt in ecstasy sweep! 

TO A YOUNG LADY, 

With a copy of the New Testament as a New 
Wtr's Gijt. 

Once again, the annual round, 

Of time (alas! how swift,) 
Requires that we, in custom bound, 

Should giv^e a New -Year's gift. 
'^JSTo gifts have I from India's coasts 

The infant year to hail; 
1 send you more than India boasts"-*- 

Her treasures soon must fail; 
But wealth, where moth nor rust destroys, 

Nor thieves break through and steal — 
A happy state of endless joys — 

This volume does reveaL 
Then read with prayer the sacred page 

By inspiration given; 
And when called hence, in youth or age, 

Your soul will rest in Heaven. 
January 1st, 1832. 



■^ ^ ^ • 



Mx4lN shall notlive by bread alone. 

While some to tempt the eye. 

Their costly viands spread. 
And eat to bursting nigh, 

While others starve for bread — 
Lord, give me only what 1 need, 
But let me on thy manna feed. 



[ r ] 

THE PIOUS NEGRO'S SOLILOQUY: 
Inscribed to the Kentucky Colonization Socieif^ 

They say my fathers dwelt 

In a country wild, yet free — 
But knew not — never knelt 

To God the pious knee. 
They say that they were caught 

By rude oppression's hand, 
And 'cross the ocean brought 

To till a foreign land. 
Nor could those sacred ties 

That kindred nature pleads, 
Prevent the sacrifice — 

To Gold t/ie victim bleeds! 
But, though they here in chains. 

My active Hmbs may bind; 
The soul restraint disdains — 

Chains fetter not the mind: 
'T is free to view the past — 

And what we might have been, 
Had but our lots been cast, 

In that dark land of sin; 
'T is free on Faith's bold wings 

To soar to worlds on high — 
Where we shall * 'reign as kings," 

Where we shall never die. 
Then, cease, my soul- -forbear 

To murmur at the loss 
Of freedom — here I hear 

The doctrine of the Cross. 
What, though 1 ne'er shall se# 

The land my fathers trod, 



[ 8 J 

Where, though I might be free, 

I ne'er had known my God; 
A better land is given 

The humble Christian slave. 
That better land is Heaven- - 

We reach it through the grave! 
[Then, aid, you geirrous band,* 

The pilgrims on their way — 
To that benighted landf 

The light of life convey: 
Her wrongs long borne, redress; 

Her dead to life restored, 
And she in turn will bless 

The fate she once deplored.] 
So, from what evil seems 

Our God educes good; 
A ruined race redeems^^ — 

The praise be to our God. 



The Colonization Society, f Africa. 1833. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLILOQUY, 

'T is said our parents dwelt 

In Eden's blissful bower. 
And morn and evenino- knelt 

And owned high Heaven's power. 
'T is said the lempler came 

And urged them to rebel — 
The fruit forbidden them, 

They, yielding, ate and fell! 
Nor was their innocence. 

Unconscious yet of wrong. 



[ 9] 

A breast-plate of defense — 

None, without faith, are strong. 
But, though this body must, 

In consequence of sin, 
Return to kindred dust. 

The better part within — 
Although we cannot know 

The joys that would have been 
Our portion here below 

If there had notbeen sin-^ 
May yet, by faith, arise 

And view those jaj^s on high 
Which, hid from mortal eyes, 

Await us when we die. 
Then, cease, my soul — forbear 

To murmur at the loss 
Of Eden, since I hear 

The doctrine of tlie Cross, 
What, thouo^i 1 ne'er shall see 

Famed Eden's blissful bower, 
Nor feed from off its tree 

Of life-sustaining power; 
A better Paradise"^ 

The ransomed soul is given--^ 
(ImmanuePs blood the price — ) 

That better land is Heaven. 
[Then, teach, ye hons of light, 

Benighted man lo see. 
And practice, what is right— 

Their fettered souls set free! 
Upon our souls' distress 

The Oil of gladness poured. 
In hope of Heaven, we bless 

The fate we oace deplored.] 



[ 10] 

So, from what evil seems 

Our God educes good; 
A ruined race redeems — 

The praise be to our God! 

Edgefield District, S. C.,Oct. 18, 1835. 



*''For though that seat of earthlj^ bliss be failed, 

A fairer Paradise is founded now 

For Adam aud his chosen sorts/' — Milton. 



IN MEMORY OF ROBERT BEST, A. M., M. D., 

A NATIVE OF ENGLAND, 

Died in Lexington, Kentucky, 

OCTOBER 30th, 1830. 

Distinguished for his professional skill, general informatioBi 

and purity of life. 

Why shrink we at the thought of death, 

As if the soul does not survive 
The last sad parting of that breath 

That kept the mortal frame alive? 
That better part, of heavenly birth. 

Sustained by an Almighty power, 
^Conscious of its intrinsic worth, 

Was fearless in the dying hour. 
'T was nature's true Promethean fire 

That lit the lamp of hope within — 
The ardor of the soul's desire 

To be yet more than it had been! 
By this refining nre consumed, 

A nobler lot to man is given; 
The ashes may to earth be doomed — 

The Phmiix spirit soars to Heaven. 



[11] 

TO MISS A. F. B., 

On meeting with her the first lime after the death 
of her father. 

What though our friends should all 

Be taken from us here. 
As leaves in autumn fall 

Around us nipt and sere — 
Yet spring will soon return and give 
New verdure — and so we shall live 
With those who now have gone 

To that bright world to come, 
When that thrice- happy morn 

Shall call us pilgrims home: 
There we shall spend, from sorrow free. 
With them ablest eternity! 
Lexington, Ky., October, 1830. 



TO THE SAME: 

On parting a few nights previous to our marriage. 

Go to your rest, my love: 

Since I am yet debarred, 
May spirits from above 

Attend you, as a guard: 
May sleep's soft dews descend — 

That, when the sun hg^ risen, 
Your grateful thoughts may tend, * 

As dew exhaled, to Heaven: 
That spirit band vWll deem 

Those dew-drops, on the cheek ^ 
Of lily, by the stream 

Of life, thou art so meek! 
CiNCiNirATi,0., January 27th, 1839. 



[ IM 

PARODY 
On ''Scots loha hae wt Wallace hiedy 

Sinner, Christ for \'ou lias bled-^ 
He has risen from the oeadi 
He captivity has led 

Captive in his victory! 

Now 's the day and now 's the hour! 
To escape from Saian^s power, 
**Seeking whom ht' may devour" — 

Sat a n ! chains and misery ! 

Who hath not a soul to save? 
V/ho can fill a sinner's oTave? 
Who can be to sin a slave — - 

Sin, our mortal enemy! 

'Who, for Heaven's King and law, 
Truth's keen sword will strongly draw, 
Bravely fight through this great vv^ar — 

Christian soldier, on with me! 

Let us on to battle go; 

Faith repels our common foe; 

Liberty 's in every blow — 

That Immanuel's life-blood cost! 

By Heaven^s joys — by hell's pains — 
By Immanuel's bleedis'g veins— 
By what little time remains — 

Strike! — or be forever lost! 

The order of the last two verses may be restored as in the 
original, with the following t^anafio^s; 



C 13 ] 

By oppression's woes and pains; 
By our race in servile chains; 
Tell them, tell them Jesus reigns, 

That they may from sin be free ! 

Or, 

By perdition's woes and pains — 
By the triumph that remains 
For the soul that vict'ry gains. 

Strike! and be forever freef 

Oi% 

By perdition's woes and pains — 
By the rest which yet remains 
For the soul that Heaven attains. 

Strike! and be forever free! 

Let us on to battle go; 
Boldly face our common foe;' 
Liberty 's in every blow — 
1-830. Crowns of endless victory! 



ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY: 

Time's chilling blast untimely nipt 

Life's fairesf floweret of its bloom^; 
The dew-drop which a-t morn it sipt. 

Ere nio'ht concealed and formed its tomb: 
But long its fragrance will be smelt; 

And when has passed death's brumal reign, 
That tomb with warmer sun shall melt,- 

That flower revive and bloom' again. 



[ 14] 

TO MISS E. A. M., 
On returning her Aihum without tcriiing i« it. 

Take back the virgin page, as fair 

As when to me it earner 
I would obey— but. cannot dare 

To soil it with my name. 
■'T is emblem of your spotless mind, 

Your heaven -born innocence; 
Your feelings chastened, taste refined, 

Your life without offense. 
So, spotless may your soul remain, 

Till called to rest in Heaven — 
Free from remorse, without a stain. 

As pure as 'twas when given. 
LixiwGTON, Kv., 1834. 



TO TRE SAME: 
On requesting her to write in my AJhum. 

Once you imposed on me a task 

Too hard for me to do; 
Rut you are able — and 1 ask 

The same request of you. 
Shrink not, like me, for fear to soil 

The pure, unsullied page— 
A master hand delights to tail 

Where fairest fields engage. 
Untouched, 't is emblem of your mind; 

But when the page you fill — 
Where. we its. rich effusions find-r- 
! 1 834. 'T is emblem of it still. 



[15] 
PRAYER. 

Go, ere the sun appeareth, 

Go at the break of day, 
To Him who ever heareth, 

In secret humbly pray. 
There offer up thanksgiving 

For safety through the nightr— 
When some have died, the living 

Should thank Him for the light- 
Which, rising, doth remind you 

The duties of the day, 
But never let it find you 

Without a heart to pray. 
Thank Him for all that 's given, 

For life and power to do 
His will, as 'tis in Heaven— 

For food and raiment too. 
Go, while the sun is setting 

Beneath the bounding west, 
All injuries forgetting, 

And make this one request; 
That, while in sleep reposing 

His eye may watch you still; 
His hand, all things disposing, 

May keep you safe from ill. 
Go at the midnio^ht hour — 

Night is the time to pray; 
Its silence speaks a Power 

Unthought of during day: 
Implore him to deliver 

From sly temptation's snare- 
That, as He is the giver, 
Me answer you this prayer.* 



[ 16] 

And, when life's cordis broken 

By ice-cold hand of death. 
Then be thy last prayer spoken 

Tn life 's expiring breath — 
O Jesus, take my spirit 

To dwell Avith thee above, 
Not for my worth or merit, 

But thine, redeeming Love! 
St. AuGusxmE, Fa., November, 1835, 



*Matt. VI, 13. 



WRITTEN m A Y0U:N^G LADY'S ALBUM. 

This is the lover's, not the flatterer's book — 
The friend's, where, humble though his name may be, 
It occupies a more exalted place 
Than if emblazoned on the scroll of fame. 
There, though read oft, it enters not the heart; 
Here it is cherished with the fondest thoughts, 
Embosomed in the maiden's warmest love. 
Exhaled as incense with her prayers above— 
'T is written on the tablet of her heart. 
Lexington, Ky., 1835. 

4 ^^^-9- » ■ 

WRITTEN m AX ALBUM. 

This book is of a page so wdiite — 
'T is like the Book of Life: a few 

By special grace their names here write, 
And then 't is held to angels' view! 

Then, may these sacred leaves contain 
No thought but angels may approve; 

May they breathe forth, in ev'ry strain, 
1 835. The force of virtue — and of love^ 



[ 17 ] 

SEEK NOT THE BOWL, BUT PRAYER, TO 
DRIVE AWAY DESPAIR. 

When our spirits are dull, and our brows dark with care, 

And our sighs are too feeble to let oil our grief, 
To retire to our closets to wrestle in prayer, 

Is the quickest, the surest, the only relief. 
Should, then, trouble disturb you, fly not to the bowl; 

*Tis, at best, but an opiate — it cures not your care; 
It may lull to sleep conscience, the guard of the soul, 

But if ever it wakes, 'twill awake in despair. 
Then, O flee from the goblet — its wine is commixed 

With no water Let keen, but poison of asps; 
The dread worm that dies not, is in aaibush there fixed, 

In its deadly embraces your conscience it clasps. 
Be your grief what it may — though the storm within lour, 

And though conscience, like lightning, may strike 
through your soul. 
Fly the tempter at once and forever — go, pour 

Aliyour soul out in pray 'r that you maybe made whole: 
And the Lord who restored the poor leper who came 

To be healed of a loathsome disease of the skin. 
Will regard your petition, if made in his name, 

And restore your sick soul, although leprous with sin. 

Lexington, li-j-y August, 1835. 



BEWARE OF STROJSTG DRINK. 

''Touch not — taste not — handle not J* 

Go, young man, in your youthful prime, 
Survey the scenes of death and woe. 

The haunts of vice, the deeds of crime. 
That from the sparkling goblet flow. 
B 



[ 18 ] 

Go, view yon form which, once like thine, 

Was clothed in dignity and grace, 
That spoke its origin divine 

Seen in the mind-illumined face: 
That countenance could once in;ipart 

The heart-felt solace of a friend; 
That voice could soothe the broken heart, 

Those hands the helpless once defend: 
: That grace is gone — that voice which erst, 

In liberty's and virtue's cause, 
In sweetest eloquence would burst, 

That drew the shouts of loud applause—^ 
That tongue now speaks but to profane 

The sacred name of all that's good; 
That countenance is now inane — 

He sinks beneath death's turbid flood! 
Warned of his fate, will you pursue 

The path that leads to death and hell? 
He thought himself as firm as you — 

He sipped — he quaffed the cup — he fell. 
Lexington, Ky., 1835. 



REPENTANCE. 

Mind is like the viro^in snow^^ 
Once polluted, always so, 
Till it melt, exhale and rise 
Back to its congenial skies: 
There 'tis formed to snow again 
Or, asfaUing drops of rain. 
Like the tears repentance sheds, 
Paints with sunbeams o'er our heads 
Rainbow tints that speak of Heaven, 
Promises, and sins forgiveUc 



[ 1^ ] 

A MOTHER'S LOVE. 

Who knows the love a mother bears her child? 

None but a mother such affection knows, 
Who wept with pain, and yet with patience smiled, 

To see the offspring of maternal throes. 
To see a germ of new existence bud, 

Of her own self a miniature, that flower; 
Bone of her boiie, and blood of her own blood — 

This gives the mother's love its deathless power! 
To see that bud, as early rose-buds swell, 

Bedewed with tear-drops, as those flowers with dew; 
To watch it with a care which none can tell, 

As it unfolds its beauties fresh to view: 
This binds the cords which keen affliction spun, 

'Tis thus her love, like her sweet babe, is nursed; 
That love dies not which has in pain begun; 

That heart may break — those ties can never burst! 
Wliat most we prize has ever cost us pains; 

What most we love has often drawn a tear; 
Even that bright rest which for the blest remains, 

Owes half its sweetness to their suffering here, 

April 1836. 



5 

« ♦ » ♦■■ 



DEATH. 

^'Bonaparte [after he had been thrown from his car= 
riage and nearly killed — when he had attempted to play 
the coachman,] continued the conversation for some 
time in the same tone of pleasantry, but, gradually lap- 
sing into seriousness, spoke of his never having thought 
himself so near death, and that he believed he had 
been dead some seconds: then crossing his arms, and 
musing for about a minute, as half-soliloquising and 



[ 20 ] 

half-addressing Josephine, lie abruptly exclaimed — 
*'But what is death? It is merely a sleep wlihotU 
dreams.*' — Memoirs of Empress Josephine, j>. 239, 

He who had battles fought, 

At death is seen to shrink — - 
He spoke not what he thought, 

But what he loished to- think:- 
* 'Death is a calm repose, 

A sleep from dreaming free; 
The Letlie of our v/oes" — 

Such he would have it be! 
But none will sleep so sound 

But shall their slumbers break--* 
They who sleep under ground, 

As they on beds, must wake. 
This inference is clear — 

Who sleeps by day, mistakes 
His int'rest, and should fear 

The darkness when he wakes. 
hi Sea, Lat. 27 JST. Long. 88 W.) 
March 22d, 1836. \ 



SOLILOQUY, 
Of a little shipwrecked sailor boy, named Dan— who 
^*as brought into Nassau, in February, 1836; and, be- 
ing in a destitute condition, was provided for by some 
ladies of that city. His gratitude for their kindness, 
as well as the impression made by their religious in- 
struction, are expressed in the following lines. 



I was a thoughtless sailor boy 
Till, shipwrecked, I was thrown, 



[ 21 ] 

To my exceedingly great joy, 

'Mong friends before unknown. 
They fed me, huiigry, and supplied 

The clothing I now wear. 
And, when at thought of home , I cried, 

They wiped th(^ falling tear. 
They taught me what I ne'er had thought. 

That time is but a sea; 
My life a bark with jewels fraught, 

My port, eternity. 
How many on this ocean tossed. 

Are wrecked on friendless shore. 
Or, foundered, freight and vessel lost. 

Sink down to rise no more! 
Borne safely on this sea thus far, 

Its surging tide I stem; 
Faith at the helm, my polar star 

The star of Bethlehem! 
Nassau, K P., March, 1836. 



■M — ^-^-'tt — ^ 



THE RIGHT MOTIVE IN WRITING. 

It is not the theme, 

But what we may write. 
The mind may redeem 

From darkness to light. 
If what I might say 

To good might conduce, 
I'd write every day — 

Come praise or abuse. 
God give me the light 

The wrong to detect; 
That, whatl may write, 
1 836. May in thought b« correct. 



[ 22 ] 
CHILDHOOD. 

Written on hearing it said that childhood was the hap- 
piest state of our being: 

I would not be a child again 

For all its sunny play, 
Its bright and laughing happiness, 

The ephemera of a day. 

Where angels with their pencilings 
Have robed the earth with flowers, 

The hud may be more beautiful, 
Than the bloom of later hours: 

But is the cultured intellect 

Less beautiful, than when 
Its tiny thoughts are registered 

Upon a doll or gem? 

The brightly shining river 

Makes glad the heart and eye, 
But ocean's solemn music has 

A deeper majesty: 

So the love of smiling childhood can 

A joyousness impart, 
But the holier affections dwell 

Deep in a woman's hearfc. 

Cfan ''ignorance be bliss?'' Then 

*' 'T were folly to be wise!" 
Is not their blight intelligence 

The glory of the skies? 



I. 23 ] 

Oh, yes! the bloom of Paradise 

Is the expanded mind: 
Where thought is as unfettered 

As its sphere is unconfined! 

Hay all our hearts commune with here, 
Find, in that Heaven above, 

The bHssful, pure inheritance 

Of Light, and Thought, and Love! 
Juiy, 1B37. 



REPLY. 



TO 



In reply to her lines on childhood, published in the Lex- 
ington Intelligencer, August 1, 1837; 

The bud of life is wrapped in lender years. 

In blooming youth is seen the op'ning flower; 
Iii manhood's prime the golden fruit appears, 

And age must eat it, be it sweet or sour. 
I, then, would be the slow-expanding bud, 

Which rudest hand in hopeful prospect spares. 
With pearly dew-drops, nature's gems, bestud. 

Richer by far than proudest monarch wears. 
The flower is fair — but all it is is seen: 

Hope lends no wing to flit in its pursuit; 
And soon 'twill be as though it had not been; 

'T is plucked — and where is now the looked for fruit! 
The buds of Innocence, in Eden's bower. 

Were watched by angels down in mercy sent; 
The hour of trial was the tempting flower; 

The fruit -untold be what we all lament! 



[ 24 ] 

The spring — the 'river' — and the boundless 'ocean:' 

The fount be mme, even though not Helicon: 
Who would be river swoln in wild commotion; 

Or sea, so common that all things sail on? 
That water 's pure that gushes from the mountain, 

Even Fairies there are seen at morn to sip; 
And birds of paradise in that pure fountain, 

Their gilded wings are often seen to dip. 
The Muses dwe\] upon Parnassus' mount, 

Not in the vale of rivers far below; 
They love, like me, the pure Caslalian fount, 

Whence the smooth streams of poesy do flow. 
August, 1837. 



ME. CLAY'S BUST. 



Sculpture, an art to poesy akin. 

With painting deemed coeval and a twin, 

Makes to the eye, as poesy to the ear, 

Nature in all her varied charms appear — 

The marble seem to live, to move, to speak 

The passions playing on the mind -lit cheek; 

Gives man an immortality on earth — 

No more of death, we only speak of birth: 

Mind cannot die — the animated Bust 

Retrieves the mortal part from, mould 'ring back to 

dust! 
But for this art, and millions yet unborn 
Might never see those features that adorn 
The face where beams the halo of that mind, 
The wisest, greatest, noblest of mankind. 
Uponrthat Bust posterity will gaze, 
Wonder, admire, venerate, and praise. 



[ 25] 

His fame, his deeds, his words, v/ill all conspire 

To give his Bust its true Promethean fire. 

That Bust will speak to liberate the slave. 

To prompt the weak, to nerve the nobly brave; 

Make tyrants tremble on a tottering throne, 

And, subject equal with his sovereign, own. 

Unhke Medusa's head that turned to stone 

All upon whom its glaring features shone, 

That Bust of noblest, philanthropic mien, 

That to be honored, needs but to be seen, 

Inspiring love to all of human kind, 

By that far better alchymy of mind, 

As purest gold is drawn from hardest ore, 

Transmutes to flesh hearts that were stone before! 

Yet, like the Gorgon's head on Pallas' shield, 

That proved invincible in battle-field, 

That Bust, should foes his country's good assail, 

Will, borne on her bright ^gis, still prevail 

In those great conflicts betv/een mind and mind, 

Pregnant with good or ill to all mankind: 

Like Delphic oracle, from that Uve Bust 

The spirit still will speak, when flesh has turned to 

dust! 
1837 



THE COUNTRY SCHOOL. 

CONDUCTED Br A YOUNG LADY. 



Close by the covert of a neighboring wood. 
Near village road, a cottage school-house stood, 
Whither repairing early might be seen 
By various paths its inmates neat and clean — 



[ 26 ] 

Fresh as the morn, and, hke the op'ning day, 
Their minds illumed by learning's purer ray: 
With eager step the much loved place they sought 
Where goodness lectured and where wisdom taught. 
No rough-disciplined pedagogue was there 
To fill their minds with little else but fear; 
With thundei ing voice, and more than tyrant look 
To chain the child's attention to his book. 
Till, like the bow long strung, the tender mind 
Became unnerved — to study disinclined; 
Who knew no means to reach the feeling heart 
But through the rod's deep penetrating smart, 
i^one such was there— for, had there been, afraid; 
Those early comers had the truant played. 
But, from her home, hard by, already there 
Sat the instructress, as was wont, to hear 
The morning tasks, as sev'rally they came, 
Loud in their praise, but seldom heard to blame. 
Who knew the mind, by native impulse free. 
Influenced might, hut forced could never be; 
Like to a stream that will not upward flow, 
But may be led through flowery meads below, 
Growing in volume, as it grows in length. 
As mind thus led will ever grow in strength. 
Eager to teach, as thej were to be taught. 
She sowed the seed of every noble thought; 
And when the germ would show itself to view, 
On it distilled instruction's purest dew; 
With gentle admonition stirred the root. 
And **taught the young idea how to shoot;" 
Now, on its leaves the rays of learning threw, 
Till to full growth the tender scion grew. 
Blossomed, while yet beneath her ceaseless care. 
And showed what kind of fruit it was to bear: 



- [ 27 ] 

From her received the fruit- creating power, 
Whose mind, like oransce bearinof- fruit and flower,* 
Both gave the seed from which sprung the young shoot 
And the farina which ensured its fruit — 
That moral j[)ollen which imparts its kind 
To all the fruit-productions of the mind. 
Each mind she thought a garden; and to toil 
In it was pastime. Tilling mental soil 
Is work for angels; how could she then tire. 
Prompted by feehngs which such thoughts inspire? 
No — she flagged not: if nature brought forth weeds, 
She drew them by the roots; then sowed the seeds, 
(While fresh the ground, e'en in their very place,) 
The seeds of virtue, usefulness and grace. 
Here she was seen to prop some tender shoots. 
There to bestow the earth round others' roots; 
Here thinned out where too many grew, and there 
Lopped off such branches as v\^ould never bear. 
With constant care she watched each op'ning flower, 
And now implored thi^ sunshine, now the shower, 
Till, like the garden of the primal pair. 
She gave it up to Heaven's pecuJiar care! 

Such was the school, and such the course pursued, 
Till every mind was, like her own, imbued 
With LOVE OF VIRTUE — as the Golden Fruit, 
Found in the mind's Hesperian pursuit; 
The Golden Fleece of Hope's far distant sea; 
The second growth of Knov/ledge' fatal tree, 
Which, plucked by hand more guarded than at first, 
Doth heal the sad effects of that which cursed. 



*Upon the orange may be seen growing, at the same tifne, 
both fruit and flov/ers. 

1837. 



[ 2B 1 

THE SEPULCMRAL MOUNDS OF THE ABORiai- 
NES Or' KENTUCKY. 

This land as well as classic ground 
The purest best instruction gives — 

Go, muse on yon sepulchral mound 
In which the red man's mem'ry lives. 

Why all that monument to death, 

That toil to make the dust survive 
The last sad parting of that breath 

Which kept the mortal frame alive? 

'T is Nature's true PrometJiean fire 

That lights the lamp of hope within — 

The ardor of the soul's desire 
To be yet more than it hath beenj 

The savage felt this fire to burn, 

But did not know from whence it carne, 

Which wiser Christians soon discern, 
And feel it kindled to a flame! 

Dark was his soul — -it warmed, but gav^e 
No light to show why it was given; 

Tlie Christian it lights through the grave. 
Returning, whence it came, to Heaven. 



HIMALAYA. 



['*It forms, in fact, one of the sublimest features in the 
fsiructure of the old continent and of the globe. Here a 
a long range of summits, covered with perpetual snow, 
Dresents itself to the Hindoo, who has in all ao-es raised 



r 29] 

towards it an eye of religious veneration I The difficulty 
of access to these reoions heightens the ardor of the ad- 
miring Hindoo, actuated in some degree by curiosity, 
but much more by superstition, to bathe himself in the 
icy streams which give origin to the Ganges, or its 
mighty tributaries — to contemplate the mystic rock,''* 
&c. — Brooke's Universal GazetleerJ] 

The Hindoo climbs Himmaleh mount 

In search of Gano-es' sacred fount. 

There in its rocks and streams to see 

Some vestige of the Deity! 

Untouched by nature's true sublime, 

Lives there a soul in any clime 

That has not oft in fancy's flights. 

Like Hindoo, scaled those awful heights 

To see, in nature's loftiest tower, ' 

The impress of Ahnighty pgwerl 

But, though with him he may not bow 

To worship rock or hoary brow; 

Or bathe its stream to v/ash his guilt, 

(For that, Immanuel's blood was spilt!) 

Yet sees, with heavenly thought imbued., 

How nature's works should all be viewed, 

As page by inspiration given. 

To turn our v/andering feet to Heaven. 

Seek you, he asks, of me to know 

Why these proud heights are clothed in snow, 

Which, like a vestal robe, hath lain 

Unchanged by time, without a stain; 

No need like gold from dross to melt, 

The sun reflected, but not felt — 

His rays by lens condensed touch not''' 

*A perfectly xoMtc (smooth) surface is not affected by the fo- 



[ 30 ] 

That snowy whiteness without spot, 
That snow an emblem fit designed 
To represent the spotless mind! 
'Tis but to show benighted man 
How pure at first all tnings began; 
How pure and deathless would hare been 
The mind it emblemed — but for sin; 
Above the world's corroding strife, 
(Fit emblem of the Christian's life;) 
Above his highest flight to show 
That nought is pure w^here man may go; 
That where his touch or pois'nous breath 
Can reach — is but the land of death; 
That even what little good is found, 
Like snow that melts on lower ground, 
Lives seldom longer than a day, 
Before it melts and dies avv^ay; 
That like this snow, but few~ are given 
To live at once in earth and Heaven; 
And to that Heaven it points to show 
Where man, if pure, at last will gOc 



THE CHRISTIAN. 

Knew he tut half the joy the Christian feels, 
When to his God in secret prayer he kneels 
The grateful tribute erf his heart to pay 
For His protection through the toilsome day, 

cus of the most powerful lens: a j)hYsical fact illustrative of 
moral truth — that perfect innocence or puritv of character, em- 
blemized in all ages and countries by Tvliite, comes out un- 
scathed from the most vio'.ent persecutions, as miraculously 
exemplified in the case of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, 
walking unhurt amidst the fiery furnace. 



[ 31 ] 

And to implore His goodness still to keep 
His watch-care over him while he may sleep, 
The proudest infidel would prostrate fall 
And supplicate the sovereign Lord of all. 
There are no joys the infidel can know 
But such as from \\\^ fallen nature flow; 
While those even to the weakest Christian given, 
Spring from that nature glorified in Heaven. 
'The Christian has, 'I is true, his hours of grief, 
But, then, he has a refuge of rehef — 
The heart engaged in prayer, like Arab found, 
While sweeps the dread Simoom, upon the ground; 
^The heart thus prostrate, in imploring aid, 
The storm of grief sweeps harmless o'er his head. 
But there are griefs the Christian may indulge 
From secret causes he may not divulge — 
Some peccant weakness which, not seen, but felt, 
)Serves but as fuel for those fires that melt 
The heart to softness, whence its feelings rise, 
As sublimated incense, to the skies: 
And, should that weakness cause a tear to start, 
That tear but washes from his contrite heart ^ 
Some stain contracted from this world of sin 
With which he still must mix, while he is in; 
While such as from the fount of pity flow, 
Bedew those plants of piety that grow 
From seed sown in his bosom from above, 
Whose fruit produces Heavenly peace and love. 
What though to distant realms no trump of tame 
Sound forth, with titled phrase, his humble name; 
. What though no journal of his life be kept — 
-What battles fought, what countries, he has swept — 
A trump, so loud that other worlds may hear, 
Proclaims that name unheard by ^nortalear, 



[32] 

Sounds forth the victories obtained within — 
The greatest of all conquests— over sin; 
And, in the Book of Life which shall abide 
When all that had been earth-born will have died, 
His name, recorded by immortal hand, 
When heroes' will have perished, still shall stand; 
V/hile he himself, from pain and conflict free. 
Shall shout the victor's song throughout eternitj. 
June 5, 1837, 



[Written on coming unexpectedly, after night-fall, on 
the spot where, many years before, I had gone to school. 
The impression was rendered more striking from tho 
road having led through a dark vfood before reaching 
the place:] 

No sign was there left of the house where in childhood 

I sat as if spell-bound, intent on my book; 
But there was the play-ground, and hard by the wild- 
v/ood. 
Through which still meandered the cool rippling 
brook. 
There, too, was the spring, fresh as rill from the moun- 
tain, 
That gushed from the foot of a slow- rising hill, 
Like learning's celestial sempitern fountain. 

Though drunk from so much, inexhaustible still! 
The beech had been felled, on which, thirsting for glory, 

With many a youth, I had cut my ov/n name, 
Thus showing how many, once noted in story, 
Have fallen in time from the annals of fame. 
'T was night, and the gloom from the dark wood was 
brightened 
By star-light that shone on the spot, where in youth 



t 33 1 

My darkness of nature became thus enlightened 

By star-light of letters reflected from truth. 
And is there, I cried, no such star-light from Heaven 

To brighten the scene when my sun shall decline — 
When death's sombre curtains shall darken my even,. 

Thus softly upon my cold features to shine? 
The saints now in Heaven — on earth noted in story — 

Like stars that bespangle the crown of the night, 
As gems in the crown of the blest "King of glory" 

Illumine the darkness of death with their light! 
Lincoln County, Ky.,) 
July 28th, 1838. f 



m MEMORY OF 
DR. HUGH S. BODLEY. 



[Who was killed, while engaged with the most respect- 
able part of the citizens of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 
endeavoring to rid that city of gamblers — to whom, on 
account of his many virtues, public and private, his fel- 
low-citizens resolved to erect a monument: upon which 
has been inscribed, with fancy's '*ready pencil" the 
following lines:] 

Shade of my friend, permit me here to trace 

These pencil lines which time will soon efface. 

But which, if graven on this lasting stone 

As deep as on my heart, to latest time were shown. 

I who best knew thee witness well may bear 

That thou wast always what thou didst appear; 

The same at home, as in the public eye, 

More thoughtful what to do than when to die; 

The same unchanged whate'er thoi* mightest pretend, 



[ 2.4 ] 

Thy country's no less than thy comrades' friend; 
The firm supporter of her equal laws, 
And dying in fair virtue's glorious cause. 
I too would leave an humble tribute here 
Of that respect which to thy name I bear; 
Would ease a heart long burthened with a sigh, 
And bathe thy tomb from friendship's tearful eye; 
Deplore thy fate — that ruffian hand should take 
A life so dear, and dear for virtue's sake; 
As mother, sister, br£)ther, kindred, weep 
Who o'er thy tomb their thoughtful vigils keep; 
Feel all they feel — but words cannot reveal 
The poignant grief which at thy death I feel. 
Thy friends do well this monument to raise 
To tell to after times thy well-earned praise; 
But marble fails thy worth to represent — 
The tribute of the heart is Virtue's monument! 

VicKSBURG, Miss. ) 
April, 1836. S 



TO A LITTLE GIRL. 

There is a Book in mercy given 

To teach benighted man the way 
That leads from this dark world to Hcaven- 

Methinks 1 hear that volume say: 
-Makia, like the op'ning rose. 

In early Spring, of richest hue 
Your many beauties now disclose 

Their richest colors fresh to view: 
But beauty, though a tempting flower, 

Will lose its animating bloom; 
It buds — it blossoms for an hour — 



I ^^ J 

Death steals its hue but not perfume: 
This Book oft read and prayed upon, 

Whate'er that may be wrong forgiven, 
The flower of life though nipt and gone, 
Its fragrant breath exhales to Heaven. 
1836. 



TRUE LOVE. 

It is not her farjn, 

Kor slaves of black race; 
K'or is it the charm 

That beams from her face 
Of beauty so rare 

That Froieiis^ in vain 
.With it to compare 

Tries once and again; 
Nor is it her eye 

Of magic control 
That causes the sigh— 

'T is goodnes^s of soul! 
'T is this lays the spell 

Time never removes, 
Since lips do but tell 

What conscience approves. 
The power of beauty 

The will oft resists— 
But love is our duty 

When goodness insists! 
'T is consent of minds— r 

'T is union of hearts — 
'T is love only, binds 
[1836.] What death only, parts. 

* A sea-god, according to mythology, |pre.telUi>g event6,,and 
ahU to assume any shape he pleased. 



[ 36 ] 

OF A YOUNG LADY 

Who had been on a visit to Lexington, hut had returned 
to the Country, 

[written for a friend.] 

The fairy with magical wand has departed; 

The love- charm is broken — the faet I deplore; 
'T is better be spell-bound than left broken-hearted— 

I sigh at the thought I shall see her no morel 
But peace be with h.er still where'er she may wander, 

Like humming-bird sipping* the nectar from -Rowers; 
Remaining awhile just to leaye us to ponder 

On all her bright plumaga and musical powers. 
'Tis right she should fly from the hum of the city 

Discordant to that of the humming-bird's wings; 
She 's gone to the country where ev'ry thing pretty 

Like early spring flowers for her banqueting springs. 
O that I might see in some sweet-scented bower 

Her keen piercing bill in the honey-cup dip, 
And ere her sweet breath had exhaled from the flower, 

Enraptured I might from that nectary sip! 
'T were heaven on earth, the elysium of fable; 

'T were nectar made richer by seraph's warm breath; 
Like Lethe's famed water such rapture were able 

To free us from sorrow — from thouo-ht even of dealB! 



TO A YOUNG LADY m LOVE. 

That bosom swells but heaves no sigh, 
Too proud to own itself so weak; 

But yet that blush, that down-cast eye, 
However disguised the truth will speak» 



[ 37 ] 

'T is right — that sigh should be suppressed: 

Love is hke smouldering coals of fire; 
Like them uncovered, if expressed, 

'T will burn awhile, but soon expire. 
'T is right — concealment's veil should hide 

The heart's rich treasure from her lover; 
Else there remains no conscious pride 

By search its riches to discover! 
1837, 



THE TEMPLE OF VESTA. 

[wOafAN's LOVE."] 

Why burns that lamp in yon bright dome? 

Why clothed those virgins all in white? 
Is it to this great city, Rome, 

To lend its faint but cheering light? 
That flame is woman's changeless love; 

Her heart is typed in that neat lamp; 
Those virgins, spirits from above 

That on her mind their image stamp. 
Those spirits caught that fire from Heaven 

To animate their image here; 
To keep it pure as 't was when given, 

And bear it back their only care. 
That flame burns ever to refine 

Its earth-made altar for the skies; 
To change the human to divine; 

To warm the soul it purifies. 
That shrine no daring hand may touch — 

Though moved by love, it will not fall; 
Such is the heart of woman — such 

Should ever be the hearts of all! 
September 13th, 1837, 



[ 38 ] 
WOMAN'S SMILE. 

That smile is like the silver light 

From star-reflecting stream, 
That dissipates the gloom of night, 
Like some enraptured heavenly dream 
In which things as we wish them seem 
To fancy's eager sight! 
Upon that mirror stream we look, 

Pleased with itself awhile, 
But find its object we mistook, 

As when we gaze on woman's smile, 
Now higher views our thoughts beguile— 
'T is Heaven's reflected light!* 
1837. 



*Gen. 2, 18. 



TO A YOU^^G LADY. 

My heart has bled, but still can feel 

How strong the ties that bind together 
Those hearts — a few not made of steel — ■ 

That sympathize with one another. 
Such friendship 's not like that in liarhe, 

When most polite each other spurning; 
But is a pure and constant flame, 

Like Vestal lamp forever burning. 
How strong must, then, the ties be felt 

That bind those hearts that nought must sever; 
Bind? no! — love's genial fires do melt 

Such hearts in one — the same forever! 
18S7. 



[ 39 ] 
WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM; 

Under a Vignette of a Scythe and Flowers. 

'^Han is like grass"; and, as its flower. 

His glory and renown: 
Like it, he blossoms for an hour — 

Then death's scythe mows him down. 
But sweeter, than from fading rose 

Exhales its rich perfume, 
The odor of his virtues knows 

No overshading tomb. — 
As stars that in their courses bum, 

Dispel the gloom of night, 
His virtues, round his shaded urn. 

Display their stellar light; 
While in the orient afar, 

Last in night's diadem. 
Appears his bright and morning star, 

The star of Bethlehem! 
1837. 



THINGS I LOVE: 

By the late Peyton T. Johnson, M. D., who wrote over the 
signature of the ^^ Western Bard J'' 

'*! love the calm and peaceful hour 

When shades of night descend; 
The twilight hath a magic power 

To which my soul doth bend: 
All things are fairer to the sight 
When softened by eve's mellow hght. 



t 40 ] 

I love to see the glorious sun 
With broad and burning crest 

When day his numbered hours has run 
Sink calmnly down to rest: 

For, like the dying christian, he 

Departs to rise more gloriously. 

The lingering tints that blaze on high 

Enraptured I behold, 
-Streaming before the gazing eye 

Like sea of molten gold — 
More wond'rous to the eye it seems 
Than ^tna with its lava streams. 

1 love to wander when men sleep 

And contemplate alone; 
And vigils o'er the midnight keep 

While zephyrs softly moan: 
For then no callous wretch is near 
To mock the sympathizing tear. 

I love to watch the vault above 
When stars are shining clear, 

And waft a sigh to those I love — 
Though none that sigh can hear: 

In every star of Heaven I see 

A semblance of the Deity!" 

[REPLY:] 

TO THE * 'western BARD." 

Bard of the West! with thee, 

I love in solitude, 
With mind from bias free, 

And passions all subdued, 



I 41 3 

TPo scale calm contemplation's mount 
And drink from Wisdom's purer fount. 

When none will sympathize 

Nor even woman love; 
To Heaven we turn our eyes 

And raise our thoughts above 
^'he earth-born cramping ties that bind 
Those of one sect, one faith, one mind. 

Though on the busy street 

No sahitation 's given, 
In solitude we meet 

Bright messengers from Heaven: 
With them sweet intercourse we hold 
Such gs may not by tongue be told. 

The law that moulds the tear 

That falls froai pity's eye. 
As well as yon bright sphere 

That courses through the sky — 
That law of nature first to trace 
Showed Newton greatest of our race: 

But yet those sons of light 

By intuition saw— ^ 
So long hid from our sight-— 

The working of that law. 
Ere earth its annual course began, 
Or from its dust was fashioned man. 

In Nature's page we read 

What God himself has wrought-^ 
Truths upon which we feed 

As food pf heavenly thought--- 



r 42 ] 

By which, without a tower, we rise, 
Without confusion, to the skies. 

There, perched on some bright orb. 
We view the boundless whole. 

Till deeper thoughts absorb 
The feelings of the soul — 

The thought of God! how wondrous He 

Whose presence fills immensity! 



Lexington, Kt. 
December 5, 1837. 



\ 



RURAL FELICITY. 

Pope^s lines on ''Rural Felicity," though written at a 
very early age, would'have been among the best produc- 
tions of his peii, had h-e not represented the man of th« 
country as being ''happy'* 

** Without the home that plighted love endearis. 
Without the smile from partial beauty won.'' 

I think every man disqualified for every moral and 
social duty just so far as he is unfit for married life. 
The female countenance is the only mirror in which a 
man should see himself reflected — and vice versa. It is 
thus, as Moore beautifully expresses it, 

**We feel how the blest charms of nature improve 
When we see them reflected from looks that we love,''' 

Pope's lines have, accordingly, been adapted to this 
nentiment, with another raodincation in the concluding 
verse. 



[ 43] 

"Happy the man whose wish and care 

A few paternal acres bound; 
(Content to breathe his native air 

On his own ground. 
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 

Whose flocks supply him with attire; 
Whose trees, in summer, yield him shade; 

In winter, fire/' 
Whose wife, the solace of his cares y 

The mother of a srailing hand, 
His raiment and his food prepa^^e^, 

With loilling hand. 
''Blest who can unconcernedly find 

Hours, days and years slide soft away 
In health of body, peace of mind, 

Quiet by day; 
Sound sleep by night, study and ease 
Together mixed; sweet recreation 
And innocence — which most does plfease-^- 

With meditation. 
Thus let me live," as I would die 

Ready whenever the summons come 
To leave this scene for locrlds on high, 
Mij final home. 
1837. 



From the Lexington Intelligencer,- Nov. 23cl, 1838. 

'*The Ladies entrusted with the management of the 
Second Concert in behalf of theiFemale Benevolent So- 
ciety and Providence Association, submit the following 
appeal in their behalf from the pen of an unknown 
friend to the notice of the community. They should 
perhaps disclaim any intention, at present, of appearing 



[ 44 ] 

again* before the public, believing that their present ef- 
forts and those of their associates in the noble cause of 
charity will be most liberally rewarded. They might 
farther remark, in reference to the sibylline fables, that 
although they have no less to offer, they hope the per- 
formers will be more fully api^fecialed.'^ 

THE SECOND CONCERT, 

In behalf of the Female Benevolent Society, and Provi- 
dence Association of Lexington — to be given at Giron's 
Saloon, on Friday evening, November 23d, 1838. 

Like Curaa^s sylvan mai(^. 

Again we make appeal 
For that kind lib'ral aid 
Due to our cause and zeal: 
Like her, if now repulsed, again 
We'll sue till we our end obtain. 
The sibyl had not sought 

The Roman's paltry gold; 
This was the lesson taught — - 

That when Heaven's gifts are sold, 
Man cannot pay too high a price 
Or make too great a sacrifice. 
The tickets we would sell, 

Will buy the widow bread, 
j^ow without home to dwell, 
Or place to lay her head: 
I^or is there star in yon bright sky 
^More bright than tear in Pity's eye. 



» The writer heard that they intended to give the third Con- 
cert if their second should be no better attended than their first, 
and it was this that suggested the allusion to the Curaean Sib- 



I. 45 ] 

'T is thus you make that Friendt 
Who, when on earth you fail. 
Will, as a guide, attend 

You through that dreary vale — 
The shades of Death's long wintry night 
That dawns with Life's effulgent light 1 



t Luke, 16, 9. 



m 
MEMORY 

OF 

AMANDA F . , 

WIFE OF 

EDWIN C. HICKMAN, 

And daughter of the late 

DR. ROBERT BEST: 

BORN, 

In Cincinnati, Ohio, 
APRIL 29tu, 1815; 

DIED, 

In Clarke county, Kentucky, 

JANUARY 22d, 1845. 

**Cui Pudor, et Justitiae soror 

Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas, 
Quando ullam invenient parem? 

Multis ilia bonis flebilis, occidit." 

January SSd^ 1850. 
Five times the earth about its central sun, 
In measured pace, its annual course has run. 
Since to its bosom, as a sacred trust, 
Was first committed my Amanda^ s dust. 
Swift passed the years, the six that we were wed«— 
But slow the foot of time that o'er her grave doth tread. 



[ 46 ] 

Time, that to other minds doth bringMehef, 
Has wrough no mitigation of my grief ; 
Still fresh it-e wound that cannot, will not heal; 
For still her loss keen as at first I. feel;— 

January 22d, 1854. 
And ever must, while life and feeling last — 
(The present has no ransom for the past; 
Nought but that w^orld of future life and bliss 
Can compensate the ills endured in this; — ) 
On earth she w^as, and, now in Heaven above, 
She still remains the object of my love; 
Her name the same in maiden pride possessed, 
Still To BE loved"^, and, of all others, Best. 



^Amanda sigDifies To be loved. It is the future passive par- 
ticiple^ feminine, of the Latin verb Amo — ^I love; that partici- 
ple carrying ^'the signification of necessity'^ — Amanda, "ona 
wiio must be" loved or ''ought to be" loved. Zumpt. 



LIN^ES 
Written by my deceased wife on her marriage and arri- 
val in Kentucky, [They were found in her drawer af. 
ter her death, and bore the marks of having been a 
hasty production unaltered by subsequent reflection.] 

My mother, I have left thy side. 

Have left, my childhood's home, 
And he who had my early love, 

Now claims me all his own. 
My sisters, I can hear no more 

Affection's thrilling tone; 
And in the strano-ers' land I feel 

But one heart all my own. 
My home, I Ve wandered far from thee, 

From scenes to memory dear; 



[ 47 ] 

And on the breast of liim I loTe 

Oft hide the starting tear. 
Supported by his stronger arm, 

Charmed by some flash of soul, 
I feel the silver cord must loose, 

Must break, the golden bowl. 
And, oh! are tears a meet return 

For all his .kindness given? 
Can I thus rend his trusting heart, 

And blessino's crave from Heavent 
Oh Lord, bind up my bleeding heart- 
Sustain. my sinking frame: 
Teach me the mysteries of thy will 

To sanctify thy name. 
Drive all vain fancies from my mind. 

The dark grave and the shroud; 
And may the liglit of life divine 

Dispel the rising, cloud. 
.Fill all my heart with blissful hope, 

As Gideon's fleece with dew — 
To feel that peace I only know 

When at thy throne 1 sue. 
And grant the boon so often craved— 

The sense of sins forgiven; 
And may my soul at last be saved 

To sing thy praise in Heaven. 



THE HA RP. 

'T was night: the modest moon with silver ligbt 
**Had in her sober liv'ry all things clad/' 

And silence reigned, the peaceful queen of night, 
Impressing all with feelings deej) niid sad: 

Amid the stillness of that midnight hour 



[48] 

Were heard the notes of Harp, so soft and clear — 
Such is, music, thy enchanting power — - 
That angels stooped its melody to hear 

As near akin to that of their own sphere! 

* * * ^ * * * 

But harps too highly strung to minstrelsy, 

Like hearts intensely sensitive, will break; 
But still that Harp hung on grief's willow tree 

And fanned by zephyrs bland will music make: 
And many a broken heart, like Harp when swept 

By gentle airs, in plaintive strain oft sings — 
That heart sings sweetest that has often wept — 

As heavenly spirits play upon its strings 

And sound in plaintive tones their wild imaginings. 

* Vf * ^ * * * 

The music of the ocean, grand and wild. 

When madly dash its waves against the shore. 
As ''voice of many waters," to the child 

Of nature, sounds, as did those Harps of yore — 
When, at creation, all the morning stars. 

And sons of God, for joy of heart, did sing: 
There 's not in Nature's Anthem note that jars; 

There 's not in Nature's Harp discordant string; 

But all, symphoneous, hymn the Lord as King. 

December, 1845. 



THE BATTLE FIELD 

Not in the battle field 

Of carnage and of death. 

Be it my lot to yield 

My last expiring breath.. 



[49 ] 

^Vhat though the scroll of fame, 

On bright historic page, 
Transmit the warrior's naaie 

To last succeeding age; 
What though triumphal arch, 

A link in history's chain. 
Attest the victor's march 

With vanquished in his train; — 
Can noise of drum and fife, 

Or cannon's thundering roar. 
Reckless contempt of life, 

With hands besmeared with gore;- 
Can curse of fallen foe 

Heard in his dying breath, 
Dispel our gloom and woe. 

Or blunt the sting of death? 
Think not that death's cold flood 

Can wash away the stain 
Of man, thy brother's blood 

In horrid battle slain. 
;;[Should Caesar, mad with power, 

And grasping at a crown. 
Attack fair Freedom's tower 

And beat her bulwarks down; 
Should haughty foe invade 

Our country's rightful soil 
And all that toil has made 

With ruthless hand despoil;—- 
Like Brutus, strike the blow, 
Your country disenthrall — 
Against the foreign foe, 

Like noble Spartan fall.] 
2^or is the field of blood 
The only field where man 
D 



[ 50] 

Has valiantly withstood 

The enemy's proud van. 
Thermopylce has long, 

As field where valor fought 
Like lioness*, in song 

Been honored, as it ought; 
Nor will I lightly call 

The name of him who fell 
Defending home and all 

That gives that home its spell;- 
But Worms more rightly ought 

To meet a better fame 
As field where valor fought 

With better arms and aim; 
And Luther's name shall long, 

As one who faltered not, 
Be han'ded down in song. 

When Spartan's is forgot. — 
Descended of the brave 

Who for their country bled — 
Who thought a soldier's grave 

But glory's honored bed; 
1 should disgrace my name, 

Unworthy of my sires. 
Did I not feel the flame 

Of Freedom's altar-fires. 
They sought the battle field 

And fought like valiant men — 
I only seek to wield 

As valiantly the pen. 



I 



* Lsonidas, the Hero of Therniopylse, is, probably, a deiivsL- 
live of Laoon, a lion, and cidos, external appearance — Lion-lQt:\ 



i 



I. 51 ] 

But, though I would convert 

The Sword into the Pen, 
And wield it to assert 

The brotherhood of men;f 
Yet, born of those who fought 

Our liberties to gain, 
The liberty of thought 

I ever will maintain: 
And, though I will not take 

The life I cannot give, 
A martyr at the stake 

V\\ die, or freeman live. 
We should not fear to die 

If God or countrv call; — 
It is not ivlien^ but whyy 

And HOW, we are to fall. 
April, 1847. 



tOr, 

And wield it not to hurt 
But save my fellow-men. 



IN MEMORY OF 
EMMA BEST, 



Late Principal of the Female Department, Common: 
Schools, Fourth, west, Smith street, Cincinnati, Ohio: 

DIED 

In Cincinnati, Ohio, in the Spring of 184f, 
Age 22 years. 



I 62] 

{During her last illness, her pupils were accustomed to 
bring her flowers, and being requested by some not to 
trouble her with their bouquets, they were still encour- 
aged by her to bring their flowers — from which she 
sometimes drew much moral reflection.] 

Yes, let my scholars bring me flowers; 

*T is thus they show their gratitude 
To one who taxed her failing powers 

To train them for beatitude. 
These flowers, when first their buds did ope. 

Were nature's striking type of them, 
So fresh and joyous — full of hope; 

But, severed from their parent stem, 
With scarce their petals full displayed, 

They are mementos of my doom — ■ 
Too soon, alas! like them to fade: 

They tell me of the waiting tomb: 
But, though this body must consume, 

I am not destined all to die — 
The spirit hath, like flower, perfume 

That lingers where its ashes lie: 
And when the brumal night of death 

Shall usher in life's vernal morn — 
Hevived by God's all-powerful breath — 

Fresh beauties shall this flower adorn. 



NIGHT THOUGHTS. 

*[Neque unquam 
.SdlvUurin somnoSyOiculisve aut pectore noctem accipit" — ^Yjrgil. 
'''There is who neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes,'' — Sol- , 

OMOU^. 

There are who do not sleep — ^i 

Not that they need it not ; 



t 53 J 

But that they cannot keep 

From wandering busy thought. 
Though "tired nature" call 

For sleep's restoring power, 
As dew at night, to fall. 

Or Spring's refreshing shower; 
The mind, with holy fire 

From nature's altar caught. 
Still burns, (a fun'ral pyre, 

Whence springs the Phoeni:^, thought,} 
Like bush that, lit of God, 

Burned, bnt was not consumed; 
Sustained, like Aaron's rod 

That, in the Ark, still bloomed. 
While others, lulled asleep, 

On Sloth's soft couch recline, 
The thoughtful, vigils keep 

At Night's most solemn shrine. 
'T is at the midnight hour 

The sleepless learn to pray; — 
Its silence speaks a Power 

Unthought of during day. 
Impressed with holy awe, 

On faith's strong wing we rise, 
By nature's primal law. 

To our congenial skies: 
There, perched on some bright orb, 

We view the boundless whole, 
Till deeper thoughts absorb 

The feelings of the soul — 
The thought of God! who still, 

In uncreated light, 
Dwelt, ere his sovereign will 

Had called from womb of Night 



[ 64 ] 

Sun and attendant earth 

To wheel their ceaseless round — 

Or angel yet had birth, 

On Mercy's errands bound. — 
% % ^ ^ 

''Oh in the stilly night, '^ 

In fancy's ready boat, 
With history's stellar light. 

On time's swift stream afloat, 
To Eden's blissful bower 

Man bids a long adieu, 
And lengthens out the hour 

That steals it from his view. 
Upon this stream he floats 

O'er realms and cities drowned. 
Whose heroes seem as motes 

Upon its surface found. 
-And scarce above that flood 

A tower rears its head, 
To point out where once stood 

Those cities of the dead. 
Like Noah in the Ark, 

Of Hope's bright world in quest — 
Before him all is dark, 

Nor dove abroad finds rest. 
Upon this trouble d tide 

Faith at the helm still steers, 
With scarce a star to guide, 

Till Galvary appears. 
This is the Ararat 

Where brighter hopes survived 
A darker flood than that 

Which left our race short-lived. 
'*T is true the Holy Dove, 



J 



t 5-5] 

Abroad on ceaseless wing, 
To many, from above 

The **01ive branch" did bring: 
But not till on that brow 

The Ark of Mercy stood, 
Did darkened man see how 

Could cease Death's turbid flood. 
Here, from this sacred mount, 

Whence purer streams do flow, 
Than from Castalian fount. 

To dissipate our woe; — 
Than Noah's world, faith views 

A brighter land around, 
Or that which wandering Jews 

As land of promise found: 
O'er that bright land shall sweep 

No desolating flood, 
Nor tender Mercy weep 

O'er man baptised in blood. 
To that blest woi-ld of light, 

Prepared for all the just. 
The spirit wings her flight. 

When flesh returns to dust. 
No '* tired nature" there 

Shall call for sleep's repose: 
We '11 be as angels are, 

Who eyes in slee^p ue'er. close. — 
To urge, in mercy sent. 

The saints to persevere, 
Or sinners to repent; — 

Or, to some distant sphere, 
On wings of light, to speed 

To herald some decree — 
Or — if the soul, indeed. 

Shall not, like God, then see 



t 56 J 

The Present and the Past,* 

Like objects far and near, 
In wide-spread landscape glassed, 

Before the eye appear, 
And in one picture blend — 

To learn its history; — 
Or then to comprehend, 

What now is mystery, 
The ways of God to man, 

The book of Providence— 
Or that stupendous plan 

By which the innocence 
And death of ''One" should cleanse 

The '*many" from Sin's stain — 
*'Notall," though ''foralP' men's 

Offenses He was slain: 
These will the soul employ 

In that bright world of bliss — 
Of which the hope is joy, 

Let come what may in this. 



* But not the Future: the future is known only to Him- 

*' Whose broad eye the future and the past 

Joins to the present; making one of three 
To mortal thought.'' 



THE CINCINNATI OBSERVATORY 

Time was when, from this brow, 

No upturned wondering eye 
Through optic tube, as now. 

Gazed at yon worlds on high, 
To trace their tuneful, mystic dance 
Through ether's Umitless expanse. 



[ 67 ] 

But — -save when hooting owl. 

More hideous savage yell. 
Or echoing wild beast's howl, 

Disturbed the solemn spell — 
Here silence reigned the queen of night, 
Her crown yon matchless gems of light. 

Jfor was that lovely stream* 

Then ruffled with the tide 
Of boat propelled by steam, 

But, still in maiden pride, 
Her bosom shone with brilliants rare, 
For heaven's own gems were mirrored there. 

But now, on spacious plain, 

From hill to pebbly shore, 
Where traces few remain 

Of what it was before, 
A bright career, a city starts, 
In commerce, science and the arti^. 

That city sits a Queen! 

By day, her subjects toil, 
And when the night serene 

Hath stilled the day's turmoil, 
That glass to many a sleepless eye 
Unveils the wonders of the sky. — •- 

Man, though to earth confined 

By tenement of clay, 
May still, for thought designed, 

Those brighter worlds survey — ■* 



* The Ohio. 



[ 58 ] 

May trace the comet's devious course, 
Deduce its law, and weigh its force. — 

While others, lulled asleep, 

On sloth's soft couch recline. 
The thoughtful, vigils keep 

At night's J impressive shrine — 
While from above the star-light sheds 
A holy influence o'er their heads. — 

First of the thinking few — 

God ever guiding them, 
While they the light pursue. 

As erst at Bethlehem — 
Astronomers their ofif'rings bring- 
To V7orship that Almighty E-ing 

Whom but one starf made known 
When He in manger lay — 

t ''This sacred shade and solitude, what is it? 
*T is the felt presence of the Deity. 

****** 

By ni^M, an atheist half believes a God." Dn. Youhq. 



-t Matt. 2, 2, (fee. 

This was doubtless the antitype of the ''lambent flame'* atteet- 

ed in ancient history as foreshadowing regal authority. (Se« 

Livy lib 1, chap, xxxix.) 

''Ecce levis summa de vertice visus luli 
Pundere lumen apex, tactuque innoxia moUes 
Lambere flamma comas, et circnm tempera pasci. 

* * * * * * ' 

* * de coelo lapsa per umbras 
Stella facem ducens multa cum luce cucurrit, 

****** 

Bi^nantemque vias." Virgil Mn. lib. ii,v. 682, d«. 



[59 ] 

Now, seated on the throne 

fOf universal sway, 
Each twinkhng star becomes a gem 
To sparkle in His diadem. — 

^T is in that mighty scroll, 

Inscribed by hand divine, 
Spread out from pole to pole, 

We read inev'ry line 
Th' eternal attributes of Him,^* 
Before whose brightness suns grow dim. 

Impressed with holy awe. 

On thought's swift Aving we rise, 

By nature's primal law, 
To our congenial skies: 

There scenes of grandeur we behold, 

Such as may not by tongue be told. 

There, j)erched on some bright orb. 

We view the boundless whole, 
Till deeper thoughts absorb 

The feelings of the soul-r- 
Tfie thought of God! how wondrous H« 
Whose presence fills immensity! 

The mighty God, who still, 

In uncreated light, 
Dwelt ere his sovereign will 

Had called, from womb of Night, 
Sun, earth and satellite to bound 
Days, months, years, cycles, by their round: 



.* * Romans, i, 20. 



{ «o ] 

Who, when our central sun, 

With its attendant train, 
]«t3 destined course shall run|| 

And Night resume her reign, 
Will make the world on a newjl plan> 
Adapted to immortal man. 



Psalms cii, 26.~2d Peter iii, 10— IS.—Rev. xxi, 1— S. 



ADDRESS 

OF THE 

CARRIERS 

TO THE PATRONS OF THE 

Daily Lexington atlas, 

O-N 
The first day of Januarj, 1849. 

time, ever onward in its course, 

On current deep and strong, 
Like river of resistless force. 

Bears men and things along 
To that dread ocean without shore 

Where many, tempest-tost. 
Sink down, alas, to rise no more^ 

Their hopes forever lost! 
But, seldom on that rapid strenin 

Has floated richer freight 
In former years, if right I deem, 

Than eighteen forty-eight. 



I 61 ] 

The Telegraph, on wings of thought, 

Like HermeSy with winged shoes — 
Who message from the Gods once brought — 

Now brings to us the News. 
TTie War that, Hke a mighty flood, 

O'er neighboring couiitry swept, 
That left its ruins drenched in blood. 

At which fond Mercy wept; 
That war has ceased its work of death, 

And Peace, with Olive crowned, 
Than victor 'g garland nobler wreath, 

Now cultivates the ground. 

But still another war we've waged, 

Another battle fought, 
'Where weapons not of steel engaged— 

Where thought encountered thought; 
And he who fought on Aiio field, 

Who stormed proud Monttrey, 
Who forced Sanf Annans troops to yield, 

Again has won the day. 
Por still upon the victor's side 

A cit'zen army stood, 
'By fierce assault unterrified, 

A noble brotherhood. 
The victories our arms achieved 

Against a foreign foe, 
Were stained with blood — fond hearts bereaved 

Of ev'ry thing but woe; 
But, in that more becoming strife 

Where mind encounters mind, 
There is no sacrifice of life, 

But good to human kind. 
For though the conflict pro re severe, 



[ ^^ 1 

Long doubtful hang the scale^ 
Those in the right will persevere. 

And Truth at last prevail. 
And yet another, fiercer fight 

For coming year grows warm, 
The People, in their sovereign right, 

Demanding a ''Reform.^' 
And now the ancient ship of State, 

From all her moorings free, 
Whatever storms her course await. 

Must soon go out to sea: 
That ship is safe while still the Lord 

Our destiny shall guide; 
So long as we obey His word 

Will He for us provide. 

The light that from the Temple shines 

Where Freedom's altar stands, 
Has reached the workshops and the rnine*^ 

Of distant foreign lands; 
And, rising in their fearful might. 

The People, by decree. 
Assert their long-neglected right. 

And dare, like vve, be free! 
Kings now are trembling on their thrones, 

Like Felix once was seen 
At PauVsy to hear thy thunder tones, 

Immortal Lamartine! 
For thou, too, of a Judgment-day, 

Apostle-like, hast spoke, 
When they who rule, as well as they 

Who groan beneath the yoke, 
Shall hear the Judge of all the earth 

In righteousness decree, 



[63-] 

i'liat ALL men are, by right of birth,- 

And henceforth shall be, free! 
While God, through us, to other lands 

The rights of man makes known, 
Our country still our thoughts demands — - 

We labor for our own. 
For should the flame that lights the dom« 

Of Liberty expire. 
Where will the Goddess find ahom« 

To light again her fire? 
Who, then, can view our wide domain, 

Uncheered by Learning's ray, 
And hear her untaught sons complain 

And turn, unmoved, avvay? 
No! by the shades of holy men, 

By Learning's sacred fire. 
Take, take, in their behalf, the pen 

And never faint or tire. 
Till ev'ry child, at least, can kead 

How his brave fathers fought. 
And learn to prize, as rich indeed, 

Their gift so dearly bought. 
No longer duped by artful men. 

The People taught their right, 
The Sword no longer, but the Fen, 

Will Freedom's battles fight; 
Till— ev'ry dark abode of sin 

Enlightened by its ray— - 
The Press, at last, v/ill usher in 

The bright millenial day; 
When, as a glorious brotherhood. 

Mankind will all unite 
To labor for the common good, 
And practise what is right. 



I 64 ] 
THE PESTILENCE. 

*^ The curse causeless shall not come.^' ProT, 26. J. 

There 's a scourge upon the people, 

Upon the fields a blight;* 
From hamlet without steeple. 

To city's toweriDg height, 
A voice of woe and vvaihng 

Is borne on ev'ry breeze --- 
For means are unay ailing 

To s,tay that dread disease-— 
**The Pestilence, tha.t walketh 

In darkness'' as its path-- 
That throuoh the land now stalketh 

The Angel of God's wrath. 
Not that the Lord, with passion, 

Like sinful man is wroth--- 
for, moved still vv^ith compassion, 

To punish, he is loth: 
But, when so far perverted 

In view of what is right, 
That-- children, wives deserted— 

We ''volunteer" to fip'ht 
In horrid warf for '*glory"— 

Our fellow men to kill, 
That in some future story, 

Oar names a place might fill:- -.- 
When seeking fame or treasure, 

Far more than doing right, 

* Upoa the fruit and wheat crops. 

t **1 he love of mankind is the love of country, as Socrates 
•understood it, and as the law of nature prescribes it. God 
has implanted it in our souls to triumph over all the animositiee 
which divide people, and all the Jratricidal wars that outrag* 
humauitv." " L'AMiii: Maeti^'. 



[66] 

And, worse still, carnal pleasure, 

Becomes our chief delight: — 
Or when, at length unheeded 

The monitor within, 
For guidance so much needed, 

We madly rush in sin; 
Till, by transgression hardened, 

The word of God abhorred, 
Nor seeking to be pardoned, 

We ask — ''who is the Lord?** 
In holy indignation. 

The Lord his arm makes bare, 
To leach such sinful nation, 

What puny things men are. 
Nor is it cause for wonder, 

That He who rules on high. 
Should speak, in awful thunder,. 

To rebels doomed to die. 
In judgment oft He ridelh 

Upon the anirry storm, 
And, though the dark cloud hideth 

The brightness of His form; 
Yet, when, disarmed by terror. 

We feel rebellion vain, 
We then confess our error. 

And own the Lord doth reign. 
Or, whether storm-cloud lowers, 

Or whether sky is fair. 
From poisoned cup, He pours 

His wrath into the air; 
And, as by God forsaken, 

Whene'er we draw our breath — 
Whatever care be taken — 

We breathe the seeds of death.— 
E 



[66 ] 

Although a little sparrow 

Falls not, nor flow 'ret fades. 
Unseen by God — the arrow 

The guileless heart invades: 
But 't is the cord to sever 

The spirit to release — 
That it may dwell forever, 

With God, in realms of peace. 
Then, since we all have wandered 

From wisdom's better way — 
The talents we have squandered 

Unable to repay; 
Let us, our sins confessing, 

Beseech the Lord to turn 
His judgments to a blessing — 

That we may henceforth learn, 
That only in God's favor 

Can we our safety find-— 
His grace the only laver 

To wash the guilty mind. 
July 4th, 1849. 



LA PENTECOSTE: 

Da Alessandro Manzohi, 

Madre del Santi, immagine 
Delia citta superna, 
Del sangue incorruttibile 
Conservatrice eterna;* 
Tu, che da tanti secoli 
Soffri, combatii, e preghi; 
Che le tue tende sphieghi 



[ 67 j 

Dair uno alP altro mar; 

Ca;mpo di quei che sperano, 
Chiesa del Dio vivente, 
Dov' eri mai? qua! angolo 
Ti raccogliea nascente, 
Quando il tuo Re, dei perfidi 
Tratto a morir sul colle, 
Imporporo le zolle 
Dal suo sublimo altar! 

E allor, che delle tenebre 
La diva spoglia uscita, 
Mise il potente anelito 
Delia secojida vita^; 
E quando in man recandoti 
II prezzo del perdono, 
Da questa polve al trono 
Del Genitor sali; 

flompagna del suo gemito, 
Conscia de' sui misteri, 
Tu, della sua vittoria 
Figlia immortal, dov' eri? 
In tuo terror sol vigile, 
Sol nelP obblio secura, 
Stavi in riposte mura, 
Fino a quel sacro di, 

Quando su te lo Spirito 
Einnovator discese, 
E 1' inconsunta fiaccola 
Nella tua destra accese; 
Quando segnal dei popoli 
Ti colloco sul monte; 
E ne'tuoi labbri il fonts 
Della parola apri. 

Come la luce rapid^ 



[68l 

Piove di cosa in cosa, 
E i color varii suscita, 
Ovunque si riposa; 
Tal risono moltiplije 
La voce dello ^piro: 
L* Arabo, il Parto, il Siro 
In suo Sermon T udi. 

Adorator degl' idoli, 

Sparso per ogni lido, 
Volgi lo sguardo a Solima 
Odi quel santo gr i do: 
Stanca del vile ossequio, 
La terra a Lui ritorni: 
E voi, che apiite i jiorni 
Di piu felice eta, 

Spose, cui desta il subito 

Balzar del pondo ascosa, 
Voi gia vicine a sciogliere 
II grembo doloroso; 
Alia bugiarda pronuba 
Non sollevate il canto: 
Cresce serbalo al Santo 
Quel, che nel sen vi sta. 

Perclie, baciando i pargoli, 
La schiava ancor sospira? 
E il sen, che nutre i liberi 
Invidiando mira? 
Non sa, che al regno i miseri 
Seco il Signor soUeva? 
Che a tutti i figli d' Eva 
Nel suo dolor penso? 

Nova franchigia annunziano 
I cieli, e genti nove; 
Novo conquiste, e gloria 



£69] 

Vinta in piu belle prove; 
Nova, ai terrori immobile, 
E alle lusinghe infide, 
Pace, ebe il mondo irride. 
Ma che rapir non puo. 

O Spirto ! supplicbevoli 
A' tuoi solenni altari, 
Soli per selve inospite 
Vagbi in deserti mari, 
Dair Ande algenti al Libano, 
D' Ibernia air irta Haiti, 
Sparsi per lutti i liti, 
Ma d' im cor solo in Te, 

Noi t' imploriam; placabile 
Spirto discendi ancora 
Ai tuoi cullor propizio, 
Propizio a cbi t' ignora; 
Scendi e ricrea; rianima 

I cor nel dubbio estinti; 
E sia divina ai vinti 

II vincitor merce. 
Discendi, Amor, negli animi 

L' ire superbe attuta: 
Dona i pansier cbe il memor© 
Ultimo di non muta: 
I doni tuoi benefica 
Nutra la tua virtude: 
Slccome il sol, che schiiido 
Dal pigro germe il fior: 
Che lento poi su le nmili 
Erbe morra non colto, 
Ne s'orgera coi fulgidi 
Color del lembo sciolto, 
Se fuso a lui nell' etere 



[ W] 

Non tornera quel mite 
Lume, dator di vite, 
E infaticato altor: 

}f oi t' imploriam; nei languidi 
Pensier deir infelice 
Scendi, piacevol Alito, 
Aura consolatrice: 
Scendi bufera ai tumidi 
Pensier del violente; 
Vi spira uno sgomento, 
Che insegni la pieta. 

Per Te sollevi il povero 

Al ciel, ch' e suo, le ciglia: 
Volga i lamenti in jiubilo, 
Pensando a Cui somiglia: 
Cui fu donato in copia 
Doni con volto amico, 
Con quel tacer pudico, 
Che accetto il don ti fa. 

Spira dei nostri bamboli 
Nell' innocente riso; 
Spargi la casta porpora 
Alle donzelle in viso; 
Manda alle ascose vergini* 
Le pure gioje ascose; 
Consacra delle spose 
II verecondo araor: 

Tempra dei baldi giovani 
11 confidente ingegno; 
Eeggi il viril proposito 
Ad infallibil segno; 
Adorna la canizie 
Di liente voglie sante; 



i71 ] 

Brill a nel guardo errante 
Di chi sperando muor. 

[op WHICH THE FOLLOWING IS A FREE TRANSLATI0»:1 

PENTECOST, 

BY ALEXANDER MANZONI. 

Mother of Saints, the type of Heaven, 
Church of the true and living God! 

To whom, in holy chargers given, 
The covenant confirmed with blood;* 

Who, long with fears and doubts dismayed, 
The field where they who hope contend, 

Hast suffered, combated and prayed — 
Whose tents from sea to sea extend; 

Where wast thou? say, what nook of earth 
Received thee when thy King was led. 

By wicked hands, ('t was at thy birth,) 
To die — whose blood, for sinners shed. 



• The sense has in these two verses been slightly altered 
or modified to adapt it to a protestant community. 

While much of it has been literally rendered, the translator 
has aimed rather to give the sense of the original, than to h% 
trammeled by the exact words of the author. 

It has not been found an easy task to translate an Italian po- 
et. The difficulty does not consist in making a mere transla- 
tion — that can be easily done; but to make that which is poetry 
in Italian, if literally rendered, poetry in English: '^Hocopus, 
hie labor est." 



[72] 

Impurpled Calv'ry's sacred sod, 
Thy glorious altar? where, instead 

Of Abram's son — the Soii of God, 
A nobler sacrifice, once bled! 

But, though He died our race to save, 
Behold He draws the powerful breath 

Of second life, and from the grave 
He rises, conqueror over death. 

And now, as prize in battle won. 
With pardons for rebellious men, 

His work accomplished, lo! the Son 
Ascends his Father's throne again. 

Companion of His matchless woes. 
Conscious of His high mysteries, 

Thou offspring of 11 is dying throes, 
Where wast thou at His obsequies? 

Only secure because forgot, 
Watchful alone in thy dismay. 

Thou didst remain in some lone spot 
Until the dawn of that bbst day, 

When from above ihe Spirit came 
On thee to dwell, a holy fire. 

Enkindled, like the Yestal flame 
On altar, never to expire: 

This flame burns ever to refine 
Its earth -made altar for the skies. 

To change the human to divine, 
To warm the soul it purifies. 



[ 73 ] 

Thy lips are made, of words the fount: 
Jew, Parlhan, Arab, Roman, Greek, 

As oracle from Zion mount, 

In their own language hear ihee speak: 

So light displays its various hues 

In rainbow, cloud, field, tree and flower, 

That, while the eye the landscape views, 
The heart may feel its magic power. 

IdolatoTs of ev'ry land. 

To Salem's temple lurn your eyes; 
There heralds of salvation stand — 

Hark! hear the message of the skies: 

Too long with this vile service worn, 
Let all the earth to God return, 

Who with your follies long has borne, 
Whose bowels for your safety yearn* 

And ye, who hail the happy morn 
That ushers in that sacred day, 

When, of the Holy Spirit born, 

Or quickened, you were brought to pray: 

Do not to false deliverer raise 
The song of gratitude and joy; 

To God alone give all the praise — 
He can create, and He destroy. 

New libert3% the Heavens proclaim, 
New people, and new conquests won; 

Of which illustrious deeds the fame 
Bespeaks them, not by mortal done; 



[ ?4 ] 

That, which in truth alone confides, 
Nor knows the feeh'ng of dismay, 

New peace, which, though the world deridea^ 
It has not power to take away. 

Thou Spirit of the Living God, 

Thy worshipers, where'er they be — 

Alone in wilds before untrod, 

Or wandering on the trackless sea; 

From east to west, from north to south, 
Eude or polite, the bond or free, 

Whate'er the lancruao-e of the mouth-— 
Are of one heart alone in thee: 

Thy favor we would now implore, 
That thou wouldst still propitious be, 

To them not only who adore, 

But e'en to such as know not thee: 

Descend — reanimate, renew 

Our trembling hearts, by doubts dismayed, 
That, yielding, for thy mercy sue — 

O grant to such thy gracious aid! 

Descend, Love, and calm the heart 
To haughty pride and wrath a prey; 

That happy frame of mind impart, 
Such as will stand the final day: 

And, of thy lib-ral favor grant 

To thy own gifts the quick' ning power, 

jfcs sun imparts to sluggish plant 

To burst the bud and show the flower: 



[ 75 ] 

Which then upon its stalk will die. 
And all its brilliant colors fade, 

Heglected, to the astonished eye, 
If — darkened by unfriendly shade — 

The sun^ the source of life and light, 
Exluiustless nourisher — that bloom^ 

Enveloped in eternal night — 

Though shining still, no more illume. 

Thee we implore, thou peaceful Breath, 
Descend as zephyrs bland, to those 

Whom num'rous ills, or fear of death. 
Have bowed beneath a load of woes^ 

But come a whirlwind to the proud, 
To men of violence and wrong, 

That they, from dark, impending cloudy 
For shelter, to thy courts may throng. 

Through thee, may still the poor man raise 
To Heaven, with cheerful hope, his eyes— ^ 

Exchange his groans for songs of praise — =• 
Rememb'ring WHO can sympathised 

To whom his gifts, so freely made, 

Like widow's mite, though small the store, 

With such becoming meekness paid, 
Accepted, makes the off 'ring more: 

To childhood's harmless sports, give life; 

With blush suffuse the maiden's cheek; 
Preserve inviolate in wife, 

That love which doth her virtue speak: 



[ '^6 ] 

T?o all the meek and pure in heart,* 

Whose conduct with ihy word accords, 
Whatever their state — lo such impart 
The secret joys thy grace affords: 

Restrain the waywardness of youth; 

Direct and overrule — imbue 
Tlie minds of all with love of truth — 

Whatever they purpose or pursue. 

Adorn the hoary head of saints; 

The dying eye of faith ilkime 
With that irradiance that paints 

The bow of hope above the lomb. 



Vauiations: 

9th. When from above the Spirit came 
On thee to dwell, a beacon light, 
With ])ure and never-dying fiarae 

To guide us through this world of night, 

OR, 

When from above the Spirit came 
On thee to dwell: by this illumed, 

Like Moses' bush amid the flame, 
Thou burnest, but art not consunaed. 



16th. Do not the work of ^race deny;- 

That embryon within your breast 
Grows, Kept by power from pn high- 
The only hope of future re'st. 

OK, 

Do not the work of grace deny, 
Nor of your meriii vainly boast; 



[77] 

On God alone for strength rely— < 
Safe only kept by Holy Ghost. 



36th. Adorn the old, though near life's close^ 
Still cheerful, of thy grace possessed: 
Illume the parting look of those 
Who die in hope of future rest. 

March 10th, 1848. 



THE ARTIST: 
Ikscuibed to J. T. Hart, Esqb. 

Who, not already steeped in crime. 
Can view the Artist's wondrous Art 

To copy natuie's true sublime, 

And feel no glow within his heart — 

The kindling of that sacred flame 

That lights the ardent youth to fame? 

Yet, of the gazing crowd how few 
Think of the toil to Artist given^ 

(Like guardian angel, hid from view, 
Intent to form our souls for Heaven,) 

Ere to the highest finish wrought, 

That work of Art to light is brought. 

To give the marble form and grace, 
Prometheus-like, with genius' fire 

To kindle in that life-like face 

The light of thought, the soul's desire;- 

This the Artist's magic Art, 

And such is thine, immortal Hart! 



[78] 

Conceiving the beau-ideal 

From world wiihout and world within- 
To make the ideal real, 

Is Artist's wondrous Art, akin 
To that which said, when all was night, 
*'Let there he light, and there was light!'' 

August 20th, 1847. 



IN MEMOHY OF FRANCES GERBTTA, 

WIFE OF JOEL HICKMAN, 

And daughter of Lieutenant John Wilson, 

(Who fell in his Country's service, at the battle of the Euta^ 

Springs:) 

B OR]^ 
March 3d, 1768; 

DIED 
May 22d, 1847. 

She did what she could — and none can do mor^~ 
To act her part, not as man does before 
The gazing world, but in retired life, 
Discharging all the duties of a wife 
And mother, ever faithful, true and kiiad. 
The impulse of her heart not less than mind; 
Teaching her children by example bright, 
As well as words, to practice what is right. 
Infirm of constitution, she long bore 
The load of life — she suflPers now no more; 
But, in the mansions of eternal rest, 
Jlnjoys the pleasures granted to the blest. 



[79] 

IN MEMORY OF 

EACHEL, 

Wife of tlie late Dr. Eobert Best; 

DIED 

In Clarke county, Kentucky, 

August 26th, 1848, 

Age 63 years. 

She, like her prototype in name,* 
Wept much, nor comfort found; 

For death, the fell destroyer, came 
And buried, under ground, 

The tender nursling from her lap- 
One after other goes. 

Till husband from her side, to cap 
The cUmax of her woes. 

Is taken also: still did ropef 
Of faith her soul sustain, 

Buoyed up by that reviving hope 
That they should meet again. 

She too, at last, from earth has gon« 
From weary toil to rest, 

With two, and two of daughter boTn^ 
To call her memory blest.J 



»Matt. 2, 18. 1:Prov. 31,23. 

t Faith, in Greek Pistis from peithoo. *'The primaiy sense of 
peithoo is to bind; hence to oblige or impel, <fec., from which 
comes peisma, a cable — trust, confidence, persuasion — belief — 
a cable for fastening a vessel to the shore, a rope." — Donnkgan. 

Also, in Latin, Fides, according to Freund, is from '[fido, soft- 
ened from PITH, peithooy peithomai.^' [It is with great deference 
Buggested whether^ic^es, ei, be not of kindred etymology with 
Jides, is, a '^string," such as is used for musical instruments ; 
which last, according to both Freund and Donnegan, is derived 
froin Sphidee, in Greek, ^'s. s. as chordee, a string made from th$ 



[ 80 1 
TO MY SON EGBERT BEST, 

ON HIS EIGHTH BIRTH-DAY. 

'T is eight years since thy life's frail bark 

Was launched on time's tumultuous sea. 
With precious freight, like Noah's Ark, 

Unknown your future destiny. 
Four years, three months, six days did see. 

Thy mother, steer thy vessel's course, 
'Till her own bark had shipped a sea 

And yielded to the billows' force. 
Then she who had thy motlier's steered 

In early life, thy coarse did guide, 
Till her own bark the port had neared, 

And entered with returning tide. 
[Still later launched, and quite as frail. 

Thy little brother's bark appears. 
In company with thine to sail 

While yet a common int'rest steers.} 
And should the hand on which devolves 

To guide aright ihy fragile bark, 
Be summoned liencc, in God's resolves. 

And thou be left all in the dark; 
May He who slept in transient boat 

And woke to bid the tempest cease 

gut of annp^als." This la^t seems akin to sphiggor, ''to draw — 
to hind tightly," and to spidees, "extended," from spizoo, "to ex- 
tend, to stretch."] 

The meaning of hoth peithoo in Greek, and fido in Latin, 
seems to be — so to hind one with the chain of evidence, or force 
of persuasion, that, he can be held or led as it were by a cord or 
'*rope." Faith, in English, is, according to Tupper, from the 
Norman fait, Latin Jactum, something done, on which to found 
a belief — or io be done, in consequence of that belief. 



I. 81 ] 

Still keep these little barks afloat 

And bring them to the Port of Peace < 



Vaeiatio2ss: 

*T is eight years .-ince thy life's frail .bark 

Was launched upon the stream of time, 
With freight, like that of IN'oah's Ark, 

The seeds of virtue and of crime* 
So mixed in ev'ry heart, depraved 

By primal fall, that =God must cleanse 
The soul from sin, if ever saved — 

The gospel serving as a lens 
To form upon the darkened heart 

The image of the HOLY ONE, 
As, by the photographic art, 

A picture 's painted of the sun. 

Should he on whom it now devolves 

These little barks to steer aright — 
A duty which but death absolves. 

And none would shrink from if he might; 
Should he, too, from the sacred task 

Be summoned hence, by God's behest, 
(Though still to stay with them, I ask. 

Yet I submit — for God knov^s best;) (fee." 

OR, 

'T is eight years since, a bud of hope, 
Like rose when first it scents the air, 



*Gen. vii, 2. Into the Ark was taken not only the "clean" 
but also what was "not clean;" and the history of Noah and 
his family. Gen. ix, 21, &c., shows that, although "righteous/* 
and hence saved from the deluge, they carried in their own bo- 
soms, in the innate depravity of the human heart, the seeds of 
vice as well as of virtue. If these seeds of crime do not ger- 
minate and grow into actual vice and wickedness, it is God's 
grLce that prevents it. 
F 



[ 82 ] 

Thy eyes with light of life did ope — 

As delicate and quite as fair. 
Sheltered awhile by parent tree, 

And then by one* who filled her place, 
Both gone, should fate too call for me, 

Thou then the storm alone must face. 
Lord, lengthen out my life yet longer 

To rear my sons bereft of mother; — - 
The fewer left, so much the stronger 

Should be the love to one another. 
October 16th, 1848. 



*Maternal grandmother. 



DEDICATION 



BAPTIST CHURCH, ATHENS, KENTUCKY 

This temple made with hands 

We dedicate, Lord, 
That, while its altar stands, 

Admonished by thy word. 
Thy worshipers may have a place 
Where they may meet to seek thy face. 

May here thyword be preached 

With faithfulness and zeal 
That warned, advised, beseeched, 

All, brought their guilt to feel, 
May to the Ark of Mercy flee 
And dedicate their lives to thee. 

And, now, on bended knee. 

Thy goodness we '11 implore, 
That, when, called hence by thee, 

We here appear no more, 



] 83 J 

Our children may our places fill. 
And learn to do thy righteous will. 

And, on that final day, 

When ransomed from the grave, 
Lord, may we, and they, 

With all whom thou wilt- save. 
Appear in thy great fane above 
To sing the triumphs of thy love. 
July 18th, 1847, 



ii 



IN MEMORY OF MARY ANN, 

Daughter of the late Thomas E. and Virginia Hickman, 

Died, Lexington, Kentucky, 

May 13th, 1848, 

In her 1 5th year. 



She was a pupil of the Female Collegiate High School of 
Lexington, and was selected to be one of the Maids of Honor at 
the May-day Celebration — but ere that day anived, she was 
called to the bed of sickness, from which she was doomed to 
rise no more. The address which, prepared for the occasion, she 
was to deliver at the contemplated celebration, has received so 
striking an illustration in her own untimely death, that it is here 
inserted : 

Accept, O Queen, this fresh bouquet. 
Fit offering on this festive day; 
Spring is a type of youthful bloom — 
These flowers mementos of our doom: 
For, though the mantling cheeks disclose 
The varied tints of blushing rose, 



[ 84] 

Yet beauty y howsoe'er arrayed, 
Blooms still, like fragile flowers, to fade — 
While VIRTUE, amaranthine flower, 
Though blighted once in Eden's bower, 
Fails not, with passing years to bloom 
And wreathe its blossoms round the tonib. 
Then be the bloom of virtue ours. 
That fades not like these fading flowers. 

Yeo, the bloom of virtue was hers; she remembered her Crea- 
tor in the days of her youth; and she has gone to a greater 
Oorooatioa than that of May-day Queen — "to receive [herself] 
a crown of glory that fadeih not awny" — to join "that great 
multitude which no man can number of all nations and kin- 
dreds and people aiid language- that stmd before the Lamb, 
with white robes, and palms in iheir hands, crying with a loud 
voice Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne and to 
the Lamb/' 

"To the ground. 
With solemn admiration, down they cast 
Their crowns inwove with amaranth and gold. 
"With flowers that never fade, the spirits elect 
Bind their resplendent locks, inwreathed with beams. '^ 



A TE A R , " i 

*'Dear friend of my heart, ere from you I depart, •' 

Tills hope to my bosom 's most near^ — ^. 

If again we may meet in this rural retreat. 

May we meet, as we part, with a tear." Bybon. 
Words cannot reveal the emotions I feel 

To part from a friend held so dear; 
When the tongue to speak fails, 'tis the heart then pre- 
vails 

In that language of feeling, a tear. 
**When my soul takes her flight to the regions of night; 

And my corse is reclined on its bier, 



[ 85] 

As you pass by the tomb where my ashes consume, 

Oh moisten my dust with a tear:'' Byron. 

And if, from above, on bright errands of love, 

m. • .. ,-n S hover near 

The spirit may sliU < ^ -, ^ ^ 

^ ^ l hn^er here 

In the toil and care of the living to share, 

I will drop, o'er your sorrows, a tear. 

Lexington, Ky., April 21st, 1848. 



'■i 



TO MY SON J. D. H. 

ON HIS SEVENTH BIRTH-DAY. 

Thy first septenniad has come — 

This is thy natal day, my boy, 
And full one tenth of all the sum 

Of years — to you, as yet, of joy — 
Which are allotted here to man, 

Has fled already: — what remains- 
Such is of life the checkered plan — 

Is mixed with pleasures — sorrows — pains. 
If, not as they appear but are. 

You estimate the things of time; 
And yet, if sly temptation's snare 

Entangle not your soul in crime; 
If, boisterous passions all subdued,- 

Your conduct by God's word be squared. 
With His own Spirit yours imbued, 

At once your comforter and guard; — 
Though still in youth, or manhood's prime, 

As years return, or one or seven, 
The faster roll the wheels of time, 

The sooner you will get to Heaven. 
July 31st 1849. 



[ 86 ] 
THE STREAM OF INTEMPERANCE. 

There is a stream, in eastern clime. 

Beneath whose sweeping tide 
Have perished millions — by the crime 

Of horrid suicide. 

The heathen, with his guilt oppressed, 

Seeks in that flood a grave. 
In hope to find that final rest 

Immortal spirits crave. 

And many a mother, to that flood, 

By custom long beguiled. 
Consulting its eternal good, 

Commits her darling child. 

Start not — in Christian lands, a stream 

Of darker flood, we find, 
In which, alas! too many dream 

To wash a guilty mind— - 

The Ganges of Intemperance, 

In which still more have died. 
In circumstances that enhance 

The guilt of suicide! 

And many a mother, to tkat flood, 

By custom long beguiled. 
Regardless of its future good, 

Commits lier darling child! 

Both — all — alike have been deceived — 

The GanctEs cannot save; 
And she, who has herself bereaved. 

By offering to its wave — 



-% 

^ 



[ 87] 

And she, who has, to stronger tide 
Of dissipation, given 

The object of her hopes and pride- 
Have offered not to Heaven! 

And he, who, of maturer years. 

The desperate plunge doth make, 
Will find, beyond this vale of tears, 
His fatal, sad mistake! 
August, 24, 1850. 



FORGIVENESS. 



Thou who, in | j^^^l^,^ [ garden,^ 

Didst agonize in prayer — 
My sins that pressed thee, pardon, 

And save me from despair: 
Teach me, by thy example, 
To bear, forgive, forget— 
7*As perfume when they trample 
* The lowly mignonnette. 



*Luke 22: 39; John 18: [. This garden is called, by Matthew 
and^Iark, Gethsemene; which means, according to Cruden,"tf 
fat vale, or olive press." 



LIGHT. 

''Let there he light,'^^ spake the omnific Word- 
Then first the awful voice of God was heard— 
And, as the shadow of creative thought, 
J^Iaterial light was into being brought. 



r 88 ] 

'T was then the darkness of primeval night 
Reflected first God's image — ''there was light.*' 

When Death's dark shades enveloped all mankind 
And worse than primal darkness filled the mind, 
''Let there be light,'' again the voice was heard, 
And, clothed in llesh, appeared the mighty Word— 
And, o'er the darkness of our moral night, 
Was shadowed forth God's image — ^Hhere was light. ^ 
September 20, 1850. 



T H E W I DO W , 

WEEPING AT HER HUSBANd's TOMB* 

Non ignarus mali, miseris succurrere disco. '^ — Virgii 

I saw her once, a ISiohe in tears, 

Like statue, standing at the urn of one 

Whose life wrs so identified with hers 
That his demise has, like the setting sun. 

Cast o'er her life's horizon, from that tomb, 

The shades of death, like evening's twilight gloom. 

I gazed unnoticed, but not unconcerned, 
By like affliction taught to sympathize; 

And 1 too wept, but yet my tears had turned 
Upon my heart, no more to dim my eyes — 

The heart is nature's lachrymal that keeps 

Such tears as only widowed sorrow weeps. 



*Gn which was elegantly sculptured the figure of a fomaL 
weeping over a sepulchral urn. 



[ 89 ] 

But though affection prompts us, on the urn, 
Like widow on her husband's funeral pile. 

The bleeding heart wnih grief's slow fires to burn, 
And yet with patience at the torture smile — 

Still reason calls us back to sacrifice 

Our lives to God, if we w^ould gain the skies. 

'Jo bind the broken-hearted — such as grieve. 
As well for sin, as those for kindred dead; — 

The wand 'ring, back to virtue to retrieve — 

To clothe the naked — give the hungry bread; — 

To grow in virtue as we grow in years, 

And reap in joy where w- e have sown in tears; — 

To be, at last, with holy zeal consumed 
As sacrifice by fire; — ('tis by the light 

From God's own altar-fires must be illumed 

The darkness of death's long cold wint'ry night;—) 

The spirit, Phoenix-like, to Heaven will rise 

From ashes burnt in such a sacrifice. 



FOURTH OF JULY: PIC-NIC CELEBRATION. 

At a Pic-nicheld on Jouett's Creek, Clarke co., Ky., 
July 4th, 1-851, Gen. A. Blackw^ell, after some appro- 
priate prefatory reirarks, read the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and Edwin C. Hickman, having been called 
upon, read a poetical address he had written for the oc- 
casion : 



Not Tempe'sYei]e where on^e the Muses dwell — 
Before whose shrine immortal bards have knelt — - 



[ 90] 

Was more romantic to admiring-! Greek 

Than, to my view, this Vale of Joiiett's Creek-^ 

Whose purling brooks, sequestered groves, cool shades; 

Deserted ruins; fountains, clift's, cascades; 

Viewed either separately or as a whole. 

Impress the mind and captivate the soul 

Of all, with love of nature's works imbued, 

Who love to meditate in solitude. 

What though Kentucky be not classic ground, 
Nor famed Pieria^s fountain here be found; 
Here 's water pure as that from Helicon — 
Nor needs the poet muse to smile upon 
His efibrt, while such lovely forms as these^ 
Inspire his song while he attempts to please. 
The Muses were, you know, though once on earth, 
By poets thought to be of heavenly birth; 
But, if permitted to express my doubt. 
They were nine damsels that once roved about 
Mount Helicon and Ihiipe^s flowery vale 
To hold their pic-nics , or to hear someiale 
Of love rehearsed by Orplieiis to the nine 
Whom his imao-ination feimed divine. 
It is not matter of much wonder, then, 
If — since invited to this lovely glen 
To meet this pic-nic — I should not refuse 
To sing a song, like Orpheus, to amuse 
The ladies here assembled^nine times nine — 
At least as worthy to be thought divine. 

But, not of love-sick swains and damsels fair. 
Of blue-eyed beauty, and of auburn hair. 
So often sung, would I compose my song — 
Far different subjects to this day belong. 
This day three-fourths a ceniury ago 
Our patriot fathers did resolve, you know, 



[ 91 ] 

That they, and we, should be forever/?'^e — 
At least, they so resolved themselves to be; 
And, if not quite unworthy of our sires, 
Our hearts must burn with Freedom's altar-fires 
To guard with sleepless care the priceless gem 
Of liberty which we've received from them. 

It is becoming, then, their sons should meet 
To celebrate that ever-glorious feat, 
And for their daughters to attend and grace, 
' With their approving smiles, the meeting-place; 
For, never yet was deed of valor done 
But what at woman's instance was begun, 
Or, for her sake, the victory was won.- 

But, more than those of any other State, 
It is becoming we should cultivate 
The love of Freedom; since Kentuchj is, 
By her position, and, from tendencies, 
Must ever be, the Heart from which must flow 
The life-blood of the body corp'rate — so 
That, should this Nation to the stake be brought 
A martyr to the liberty of thought^ 
Kentucky, like the heart of Granmer found 
Amid the embers but unscathed and sound, 
May from the ashes of that martyrdom. 
Bear witness to the truth all time to come. 

The day we celebrate — long may it be 
A day of much rejoicing to the free. 
Great was the day when man received command 
To hold dominion over sea and land — 
The earth replenish and subdue, and bring 
Beneath his power every living thing; 
But greater was the day when, from above, 
A ''new Commandment" came that we should love 
Our fellow-men— -and he that would be great 



[ 92 ] 

Must as a servant on the others wait; 
And great the day--the day we celebrate — 
When, by this law, our Ministers of State 
Proclaimed that all men are, and ought to be. 
Of equal rights and in their persons free 
To seek their happiness as they may choose, 
Unless they should that liberty abuse — 
The Charter which secures the greatest good 
To greatest numbers of man's brotherhood. 

All government is founded on the fact, 
That man is free to act or not to act, 
And hence responsible for the right use 
Of such a liberty or its abuse; 
And hence the law, defining right and wrong, 
Was made to guard the weak man from the strong; 
And thus some government of laws to bind, 
Has been found necessary for mankind." 
That government is, then, of all the best 
Where laws are but the public will expressed; 
For, laws to be respected and obeyed 
By freemen, must be first by freemen made. 

But, so diversified are soil and clime 
And interests thence arising, that, from time 
Whence hisl'ry dates, mankind have ever been 
Divided into nations: some hemmed in 
By mountain barriers; some, like ancient Rome, 
Have passed their bounds and made the world theii 

liome; 
Eut local interests prevailed again- 
And rent the empire of old Rome in twain. — 
It is not easy, formed as nations are 
Of elements that are^at constant jar, 
To live coterminous and not fall out — . 
However disposed to comiiy — about 



[ 93 ] 

Their interfering claims, unless some bond 
Of mutual interest, for them be found. 
Taught by the past, our fathers did devise 
A remedy for this, both safe and wise. 
In Union of the States they sought to find 
That bond of common interest 'mong mankind, 
By which to guard us from the strife and broil 
That spring from difference of clime and soil, 
And, yet the better to prevent such jars. 
They left each State to manage its affairs. 
The Federal Guinpact is the sacred chain 
That binds the States, from Oreo'on to Maine: 
Be never heait so hase as even to think 
From that bright chain to strike the smallest link, 
Nor Ifand so darini>' as to strike that blow 
From which an Iliad oi ills must flow. 

Our Central Government, like central sun, 
Attracts the States, and makes ''of many one;'' 
Each in orbit keeps its proper course, 
Impelled by central and tangential force: 
As well might planet from the sun recede 
As state from Central Government ''secede;" 
Ahke would both, eccentric, comet-like. 
The gazing world with sudden terror strike; 
Alike would both be lost in endless nio-ht, 
Beyond the reach of hope, or sun's refreshing light. 

What power sustains that boast of modern art, 
The Crystal Palace, and binds part to part? 
The strength of iron, running through the mass, 
Makes strong that Palace though composed of glass; 
Thus, though our government to some may seem. 
Like it, the baseless fabric of a dream 
That soon must vanish from the wakins: mind 
And leave no trace, that it had been, behind; 



[ 94 ] 

Yet still the bands of int'rest like the strength 

Of iron, bind our country in its length 

And breadth together as a mighty whole, 

The Palace of the Free: — who must control 

The destiny of nations and subdue 

The world to Freedom, if to God but true: 

Worse than incendiary who destroyed 

Ephesian temple, and of soul devoid. 

Is he who breaks a band, however small, 

By which that Palace of the Free must fall. — 

The flag in triumph by our fathers borne, 

Must not be rudely by their children torn; 

Nor must there lots be cast whose it shall be — 

We all may claim the Banner of the Free; 

And, not until, divided, we shall rend • 

The Stars and Stripes, will Freedom's conquests end- 

Which may God in His providence fbrefend! 



*Tlie Ladies. 



THE REWARD OF LABOR. 

He who with hands doth toil, 

Shall of his labor eat. 
Like ox that ploughs the soil 

Or treadeth out the wheat; 
But he wdio wiili his brain 

Doth toil, like silk-w^orm weaves 
His shroud-— w^hich he, for gain 

Of others, dying leaves. 
JSTor doth the worm all die--- 

Even nature has two lives— 
But, as a buUerfiv, 

The mystic change survives. 
'T is thus with him who toils 



r 95] 

For others with his brain; 
Death but in part despoils— 

He dies to live again 
More buoyant than at first; 

But, not like butterfly 
CocoO:.-born, he shall burst 

From tomb no more to die. 
Then, like the worm would 1 

Become a chr3^salis 
To gain-— such do not die— 

A metamorphosis:--- 
No more to crawl the earth, 

But, like a butterfly, 
Born of the Second Birth, 

To soar to worlds on high. 
August 21st, 1849. 



ACROSTIC. 



L ove, like the Yestal flame, forever burns 
U pon the ahar of the heart that turns, 
C onscious of ^its own purity, above, 
Y earning for object worthy of its love. — 

M ade for the skies, and yet designed to stay 
A while on earth, as pilgrim on his way, 
D enied the aid and counsel of a wife 
I n bearing up against the cares of life, ^ 
S ad were the lot of man: nor in his pride, ^ 
f all things else, was Adam satisfied, ^ _ V 
N or found relief till Eve became hi^ bride. ) 



[ 96 ] 

T bus formed/or man, by God himself designed, 
A blessing from the first to soothe his mind-- 

V et not his slave, but of quite equal grade--- 
L et wcman act the part for which first made, 

n man, as guardian angel, still attend, 

11 eclaim by love, but never once offend.- -- 

V irtue alone is happiness below; 

1 llusive and seductive life's vain show; 

V irtue alone prepares us for the skies; 

I n virtue's scale let us then seek to rise: 
O n earth prepar*^ to live with God above, 
N or ho])e to tind on earth an object worth our lors. 
June 25, 1851. 



BAPTISM. 



There is a stream, in eastern climes, 
In which the sinner, if immersed, 

Believes himself absolved from crimes 
For which, without, he feels accursed. 

Start not--in Christian lands the same 
Belief too frequently is found; 

It differs here, 'tis true, in name. 

But what is difference of mere sound? 

Far be it from my lips to speak. 

Much less my pen presume to write, 

What is not true--'tis truth I seek- 
In reference to a Chiistian rite: 

But here too often we believe, 
And some on this their hopes have built, 

That in immersion we receive 



[ 97 ] 

The only pardon of our guilt :* 
However vile, by this absolved— 

But lost, however pure, without:-- 
A point which is to some involved 

In much perplexity and doubt. 
A purer stream than Ganges' flood--- 

Baptismal waters cleanse not guilt ; 
Sins must be purged alone by blood — 

For that Immanuel's blood was spilt. 
He only that believes can lave 

His spirit in this sacred stream ; 
This is the baptism that ''doth save"--- 

Salvation else is but a dream. 
Immersion, in its mode, implies 

Our burial, and death to sin — 
Its element doth emblemize 

The cleansing power of grace within ; 
And for its object, without doubt, 

This ordinance would seem to mean, 
That, pardoned, washed, within, without. 

We should preserve the Conscience clean, f 



*,The writer intends no disrespect to those who may hold a 
different opinion. He argues not the question, pro or con, 
whether, to the truly penitent believer, baptism may, or may 
not, be for the remission of sins; — but he respectfully suggests 
whether the sdmonition of Peter (2d Pet., 3: 16) may not apply 
to this as to other subjects treated of in the Sacred Scriptures. 

t '*La bapteme — (non celui qui consiste a purifier la 

chair de ses suillures, [mais celui qui engageant la conscience a 
se conserver pure pour Dieu,) (fee. 1st Peter, 3, 21 .French Transla- 
tion, as drawn from the Vulgate. 

G 



[ 98 ] 
CIRCULAR LETTER r 

Boon's Creek Associaton. 

Brethren in Christ, once more in Council met, 
We deem it proper, lest we should forget 
How frail our life is, and our time how short, 
To stir up one another, and exhort 
To greater diligence — since 't is a crime 
Of high demerit to mis-spend our time. 

Time is a stream upon whose surface glide 
The giddy world, in life's vain pomp and pride; 
The phantom, pleasure, each, in vain, pursues, 
Some in fine barges, others in canoes — 
But, borne in barge, or rowing humble boat, 
All, though unconscious, to the ocean float — 
The ocean of eternity — whose surge 
Engulfs the hopes of men with solemn dirge, 
Lik^*' voice of many waters" tempest-tost — 
The requiem for the souls in her dread Maelstrom lost! 

Days, weeks, months, years, in quick succession, pass; 
None notes how swift the sand ebbs through his glass; 
Yet on that hour, perhaps, may oft depend 
The issue of events that never end. — 
Since last we met, another year has flown, 
And we still farther on our journey borne 
To that tribunal where we must appear 
To give account for every misspent year. 
How many now lie ''powerless in death,'' 
Who, this day twelvemonth, drew the vital breath! 
'T is deeply solemn to review the past. 
And think the present year may be our last! 
How circumspectly, then, ought we to live, 



ij 



I 99 ] 

So soon, perhaps, a strict account to give 

Of time and talents for improvement lent 

How dread the final reckoning if misspent! 

But all must have rebelled or Pestilence 
Would not, commissioned by God's providence, 
Stalk through the world to decimate our race:-- 
If we be spared, 't will be, as saved, by grace. 
Why sends He pestilence? Or why, again. 
Withholds the early or the latter rain? 
To teach us, while we feel the chast'nmg rod 
Due to our sins, to seek our peace in God; 
That lite and grace are God's prerogative— 
We all must die, unless He lets us live; 
And, if 't is ours to feel our sins forgiven, 
That blessing comes, Hke rain at last, from Heaven 
'T is wise, when God, for some sufficient cause, 
Inflicts his chastisements — 't is wise to pause, 
And scan our lives, to see where we have erred, 
And do the like no more; — to be deterred. 
By God's reclaiming judgments, from our vain 
And sijiful course, lest we be scourged again. 
When God, in ancient times. His prophet sent 
To Nineveh, to warn them to repent. 
Or, in his righteous anger. He would send 
Upon them swift destruction; — to amend 
Their lives forthwith they every one began 
In piety to God and love to man — 
They who, compared with our superior hght. 
Could not discern their left hand from their riaht 
What sorer punishment ought we expect. 
If we so great salvation do neglect! 
\iy when chastised for sinning, v/e desire - '- '* 
Still to return, like washed sow to i\iQ^ mire 



[100] 

To wallow in the filth, from which once purged, 
If we return, we'll be severely scourged. — 

But, not by judgments only — God has been 
Reproving, by his Spirit, men of sin. 
And adding to our number ma«y, whom, 
We trust. He'll save, with us, from that dread doom, 
Which, sweeping all things like immense Simcom, 
Will wrap the world in universal gloom! 

But wherefore should we labor? For the bread 
That millions toil for, eat, and yet are dead? 
Christ is the livmg bread: — He came to give 
Himself for us that, eating, we might live--- 
Not for ourselves alone, but, hke the dough 
Imbued v/ith leaven, to make others so. 
The food that perishes, is little worth- 
Proceeding from, it must return to earth; 
But faith in Christ lays hold, his word assures. 
Of food that to eternallife endures-- 
And millions, starving for this bread, now cry 
To us, like children, ** Will you let us dle?''"^' 
Or, shall we dig in California'' s mines 
For dust that with a yellow lustre shines.^ 
Far richer gold, in living dust concealed, 
Awaits the spade of truth to be revealed-- 
Immortal souls, that must in glory shine 
Effulgent with the li^ht of life divine. 
Or, tarnished in their lustre by the stain 
Of sin, in darkness and despair remain. 
When suns grow dim, and Ophir's golden dust 
Shall be obscured with time's corroding dust. 
Then, let us labor in this sacred mine, 
Whose treasures Oalifornia's gold outshine; IJ 



[ 101 ] 

For they, who many turn from wrong to right, 
Shall shine in Heaven, like stars, forever bright.— 

God grant a blessing from that world above- 
More godliness, more gentleness, more love; 
More charity for others' woes to feel. 
Our hope well-grounded, faith increased, and zeal— 
That, living, we may learn to do God's will, 
And, dying, go to Heaven to serve him still. 

September, 1850, 

* "The Assamese people/' says one of them, [and the same 
may be said of the whole heatJien world,] '*are not dying for 
worldly riches, but they are dying for the bread of life, which 
came down from Heaven not alone for Americans, but also for 
the poor Heathen/' * * * "But how can they be- 

lieve, unless they hear the Gospel? And how can they preach 
unless they be sent from American churchesf Missionary 
Magazine, July, 1850; p. 234. 



IN MEMORY OF 

JOEL HI CKM A]Sr, 

A Soldier of the Kevolution : 

BORN 

In Culpepper County, Virginia, 

August 10th, 1761 ; 

DIED 

In Clarke County, Kentucky, 

July 16th, 1852. 

He stood an oak among the forest trees, 
Unscathed by storm, but ruffled by the breeze, 



[ 102 ] , 

And venerable with the frost of age, 
Whose hoary head did eyes of all engage. 
He lived a life of moderation — health 
Repaid his virtues with her better wealth ; 
He lived a life of temperance, and so 
Attained an age but seldom reached below : 
He loved his country, and in youth engaged 
In war that was with mother country waged 
To gain that freedom which belongs to man 
By right of birth : — let us do all we can 
To guard from sacrilege that sacred fire 
^ox let the flame of liberty expire. 



OUTLINES 

Of an Address which I was requested by a young- 
lady to prepare for a second Pic-nic which was to be 
held on Jouett's Creek, Clarke county, Kentucky. 

[The Pic-nic was held sooner than was expected, and 
at a time when I was out of the county. The Ad- 
dress is inserted, as originally sketched, the mere skele- 
ton of what was designed to be a more labored produc- 
tion.] 

Once more. Young Ladies, at your call I rise — 
Nor do I such distinction lightly prize — 
Some thoughts for your amusement to rehearse — 
The better to engage the ear — in verse. 

A Pic-nic is an entertainment, made 
In some sequestered spot, ot pleasant shade. 
Where gentlemen and ladies — all elite — 
For social pastime and amusement meet; 



[ 103 ] 

For courtship, ii you choose;-- for who can walk 
These woods with lady and of love not talk--- 
When lonely groves so strongly call to mind 
How lonely was the first of human kind, 
When God, in mercy, uttered from His throne 
'*It is not good for man to be alone," 
V/hen all the world was, like this valley, wild, 
**And man, the hermit, sighed till woman smiled:" 
'T is thus we see how nature's charms improve 
* 'Reflected from the looks of those we love.'^ 

*Mid scenes like these the Ny7nphs were wont to dwell, 
And modern nymphs on whom their mantle fell. 
In some romantic vale, or lovely grove. 
To breathe its spirit still delight to rove--- 
Till, though unseen, the Dryad of the place 
indues her votaries with so much grace, 
That men, regarding them from higher spheres, 
Instead of lords, become their worshipers. 

Love is the feelings of the heart in bloom 
That gives to life its beauty and perfume, 
And we are weeds witJiout it— such as grow 
For man's annoyance since the curse of wo; 
JBut weeds were not in Eden's blissful bower--- 
There flourished only love's ambrosial flower. 
If such be love, say, should I not discourse 
Of love, and tell its nature and its source. 
Love is the Vestal flame that ever burns 
Upon the altar of that heart which turns, 
Conscious of its own purity, above, 
Yearning for object worthy of its love. 
Love is the fire-— so ancient poets say-— 
By which Prometheus warmed the man of clay: 
'T is heavenly spark, then, lights the flame oflove. 



[ 104] 

Which, while it bums, still points the soul above. 

Love, then, shall be my theme, and, though I'm old. 

Love's altar in my heart has not grown cold; 

But— since chastised for my ido-latry 

Of woman howsoever pure— since she 

I idolized— whose memory I revere— - 

Has been translated to a brighter sphere; 

Save what is due to God in Heaven above--- 

My Country claims tlie ardo? of my love; 

Nor will the ladies grumble, I am sure. 

My country should become my cynosure: 

For, like the Vestal Virgins af old E,ome, 

'T is woman's place, wherever be her home. 

To kindle on its altar Freedom's fire, 

Nor let that flame of purity expire. 

Nor does this love require, as some suppose, 

That we regard all foreigners as foes: 

The love of country, rightly understood. 

Embraces all men as a brotherhood 

Of common origin and common end, 

Whose int'rests in one common int'rest blend-- 

That howso'er divided, it is still 

Their interest to cultivate good will 

To one another — since in peace they thrive 

Like bees at work in same or sep'rate hive.. 

Love for the sex is strongest in our youth — 
In age, the love of country and of truth; 
Love for the sex is natural to the heart 
Of man, nor needs the aid of Cupid's dart; 
Love for our country needs the fan of praise, 
At times, to kindle it into a blaze; 
Love for the sex, though pure, has still combined 
With it a little of the selfish kind; 



[ 105] 

Love for our country, as old Tully said* 

Seeks what will be her good when we are dead; 

But, though the love of country and the sex 

Be quite dissimilar in some respects^ 

Yet still the patriot is a lover true — 

Who loves his country loves the ladies too; 

For, what to us is country, or the air 

We breathe, without the presence of the fair? — 

{JT is said that Nature's archives testify — 
Wnat none who read their Bible will deny — 
That which was best was not in order first, 
But that which in its nature was the worst; 
The first was made inferior to the next, 
And thus geology confirms the text 
In which, in strict accordance with the plan, 
We read that Woman was made AFTER man — 
The last act of creation: Nature stood 
Complete in her — for she was *'very good.") 

Who that has heart with love of country warm. 
Has not had fears of an approaching storm 
That yet may sweep our country like Simoom, 
Involving all in universal gloom? 
Who then that loves his country. North or South, 
Would fail, whene'er he can, to open mouth 
To plead the cause of Union as the Ark 
Of safety, shoald our sky with storm grow dark, 
And overwhelm our country with a flood — 
Even if that deluofe be a sea of blood? 
Let all, then, North and South reflect and see, 
Before they launch on faction's stormy sea, 

* ''Quia tanta caritas patriae est, ut earn ndii sen su nostro, sed 
salute ipsius metiaraur." Cic. Tcsc Qv^s 



[ 106 ] 

Should masts go overboard and ship divide. 
How could they hope the tempest to outride? 
The Union is our Ark — preserved in that, 
We still might hope to find an Ararat. 

(The Ladies, too, 't is said, since time began^ 
Are all for Union — to a single man: 
Then let them advoeate their Country's cause-— 
Their influence is greater than all laws; — 
Who does not feel the magic sway of beauty? — 
That State is safe where woman does her duty.) 

We boast a country great in all that makes 
A country great — in mighty rivers, lakes. 
And prairies decked with many a pretty flower — 
But greater in its elements of power — 
Time's last great empire, when man, fully grown, 
Takes to himself the sceptre and tlie diroiie, 
No more to fear an angry tyrant's nod — 
We own no power above us but of God.; 
Subordinate to whose supreme behests^ 
We m?ke such laws as policy suggests 
The better to promote the greatest good 
Of all united as a brotherhood. 

Who would not love a country such as ours, 
Whose government of nicely balanced powers, 
The work of sages, wise as they were good, 
Who tyranny in every form withstood, 
Secures to all the blessings of the free, 
The equa£ rights of heaven-born Liberty? 
Hut still the -^'Gonsiiufion'' only s^ei^ves 
As osseous fabric, which the muscies, nct-ves, 
'I'he laws and officers, move and control 
As wills the pubhc sentiment, the soul: 



[ 107 ] 

How all-important, then, that soul be taught 
To feel, act, covet, only as it ought — 
That sense of right, as conscience, may decida. 
In doubtful circumstance, on Justice' side. 
Religion is the teacher — in her school 
We learn self-government, as the first rule; 
Nor can that people long continue free 
That has not learned this law of Liberty. 
August, 1851. 

» ■♦ ♦ ^ » — 

GEMS OF THOUGHT. 

Let others dig for gold, or sparkling gems. 
Such as adorn imperial diadems; 
But be my lot to labor in that mine 
Whose gems Golconda^s boasted wealth outshins- 
The' gems of thought, which, in pure metal -set, 
Make for their author a rich coronet. 
The gems of earth shine with reflected light — 
But those of thought, with native lustre bright.— 
The diamond is, at first, but seldom found, 
Exposed to view, on cultivated ground : 
That sparkling gem, of other gems the queen, 
Is formed in Nature's laboratory — e'en 
Beyond man's ken — till some convulsive throes 
Of Nature, to the light her wealth expose. 
'T is thus the gems of thought we so much prize, 
Deep in the mind's recesses, crystahze ; 
But though composed **of purest ray serene/* 
8till they remain by mortal eye unseen, 
Till some affliction, *'oft in mercy sent," 
The deep recesses of the mind has rent, 
And thrown its treasures open to the sight. 
Its gems all sparkling with inherent light.. 
August 26th, 1850. 



b 



[ t08 ] 
THE ITALIAN AND ENGLISH. 

"I love the language, that soft bastard Latia, 
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth. 

And sounds as if it should be writ on satin, 
With syllables that breathe of the sweet Soutli, 

And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in 
That not a single accent seems uncouth, 

Like our harsh Northern, whistling, grunting ^wrterai, 

Which we are obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all." 

[Bijron, Beppo, Stanza xiv. 

THE SAME DIFFERENTLY EXPRESSED. 

I love the language, that soft modern Latin, 
That melts like kisses from a lady's lips. 

And sounds — as if it should be writ on satin, 
With pen which genius in the sun-beams dips 

From chariot like that which Phaeton once satin — 
So smooth, that ev'ry word with such ease slips 

From off the tongue, that not an accent jars, 

Or uncouth sound its melody once mars, 

As in our Northern dialect: — whose misses 
Are quite as fair as those of Southern skies; 

Their smiles as winning, and their melting kisses 
But few so stoical as to despise : 

And if their tongue with Z's and S^s hisses. 

They 've more the serpent in their charming eye« : 

ISTo notes of discord in their tempers jar, 

Though guiterals and sihilayils their music mar. 
October 18^h,1850. 



TEE LEXINGTON FAIR. 

Come, haste to the Fair — come all to the show; 
Here premiums are offered for all that doth grow; 



( 109 ) 

For all that is made, for flowers and fruits; 
For peaches and apples; for hats, hose and boots; 
For bed-quilts, and shawls and fine reticules; 
For cattle and sheep, hogs, horses and mules; 
For what can be grown on an acre of land; 
For works, too, of taste, if but made with the hand 
For ev'ry thing else a premium I find. 
Except for the works or productions of mind. 
What matters, so we all the world besides beat 
In raising potatoes, hogs, cattle and wheat. 
If our mindsy occupied with raising of food, 
(As vessels are oft with their contents imbued,) 
Should ruminate only, like cattle and sheep. 
On what we have eaten^ and then fall asleep 
To dream of fine pastures — like cattle, not men, 
To wake from our slumbers to grovel again. 
October 1st, 1850. 



Note. — While it is not contended that an Agricultural and 
Mechanical Association should offer premiums for the higher ef- 
forts of genius in the department of Belles -Lettres, (yet in the 
absence of any Literary Association specially charged Tvith 
Buch interests, such an encouragement of literature by them, 
would not be altogether out of place in a city styling itself the 
Athens oi the West), it is believed by some that a greater good 
would be effected, and the objects of the Association better pro- 
moted, by opening a competition for mind in the offer of pre- 
miums for Yv'ell written Essays on Agriculture, HorticuUui*, 
Mechanics, &c. 



TYPES. 

If we analogies would scan, 

We '11 find — whate'er their grade is — 
Quartz represents the polished man, 

But diamonds type the ladies. 
October 22d, 1850. 



tiio] 

ADDRESS 

OF THE 

Carrier of the Lexington Observer and EeporUr, 
January 1st, 1851. 

Time, through the course of days, weeks, months, \im 

run 
Another circle round our central sun. 
And has completed just one-half an age — 
The nineteenth century — upon whose stage 
The greatest drama that the world has seen 

Is being played by people, kings and queens, 
Without their ministers to stand between, 

Or royal equipage to deck the scenes — 
While art and science, as an interlude. 
Display their wonders to the multitude. 
Another act has closed — but on that stage 
New scenes will soon the waiting world engage. - 

But not as heretofore, come we to sing 

Of people rising to dethrone their king ; 

Of san^'uinary battles, where the few 

Maintained their ground, the many first withdrew^; 

Of cities conquered, and of land annexed 

To Freedom's Soil — no longer ''question vexed ; '' 

These were gieat themes — events whose echoes still 

Reverbeiate among us, and long will. 

But greater battles have of late been fought. 

Where steel met not with steel, but thought with thought; 

Where rights and principles were in dispute. 

And Freedom's champions — Clay, Cass, Webster,' 

FOOTE, 

And their compeers in Congress — but the time 



1. HI ] 

Would fail to name thein, if their names would rhyme. 
Hard was the contest — doubtful hung the scale, 
But truth and justice did at last prevail. 
These were true soldiers — they the danger braved, 
The UNION strengthened and our country saved ; 
Nor were these veterans more brave than wise, 
As they have shown by their great ''GGmpromise.y 
Sad were the hearts of all and deep the gloom 
That hung, like night, foreboding some dread doom; 
With which was burdened time's prolific womb, 
But which, now still-born, claims an early tomb. 

Our Central Government, like central sun, 

Attracts the States, and makes ''of many one ; " 

Each in its orbit, keeps its proper course, 

Impelled by central and tangential force. 

As well might planet Irom the sun recede. 

As State from Central Govejnment ''secede ;" 

Alike would both, erratic, comet-like. 

The gazing world with sudden terror strike ; 

Alike would both, at last, be wrapt in night, 

Without one ray of hope or beam of Jight. 

Where stood Kentucky in that fearful fight? 
Where she has always — on the side of right : 
And, should this Nation to the stake be brought 
A martyr to the liberty of thought, 
Kentuclcy^ like the heart of Cranmer found 
Amid the embers, but unscathed and sound, 
Wilf from the ashes of that martyrdom. 
Bear witness to the truth all time to come. 
Say not that contest was but fierce debate, 
Involving not the welfare o-f the State : 
A nation's destiny for weal or v/oe — 



[llg] 

Shall brethren hail each other friend or foe? 

Shall peace, with olive crowned, continue still 

Our happy land with every good to fill — 

Or civil war commingle kindred blood, 

And desolate our country as with flood ? 

Events like these— fraternal love or hate — 

Hung on the issue of that great debate. 

Words have a power that cannon-balls have not ; 

These, with burnt pov/der — those, with mind are shot ; 

These lose their power when once their force is spent ; 

Those keep the force with which they first were sent ; 

And he who gains a vict'ry in debate, i 

Charged with the interests of church or state, V 

Has won it for all time, however late. ) 

Clubs, swords, guns, cannon, are the arms which might 

Too often uses in his war with light — 

Arms such as men, when to full stature grown, 

Will look upon as murd'rous, and disown. 

He who is worthy ef th^ name of man, 

Will ask what ought he do— not, what he can ; 

And, when mankind have all learned to abide 

By what is right, arms will be laid aside. 

God grant the time may speedily arrive ^ 

When men no longer shall in war contrive 

To kill each other, but in peace shall thrive, 

Like bees at work in same or separate hive. 

Oar ship of State that has by compass steered 

Her onward course, howe'er the wind has veered, 

Has been refitted, and, with timbers new. 

Now goes to sea again, wiih abler crew ; 

LontT may she sail in safety, and outride 

Thelhreafning storm, should storm her course betide. 

The voice of Providence, as well as schools. 
Proclaims aloud the doctrine that God rules 



[113] 

In the affairs of men, and sets up whom 
He pleases as vicegerents: — at the tomb 
Of Taylor weeps a nation: — in whose stead 
Is set up Fillmore as our nation's head. 
Upon that Arm, then, of almighty power. 
And not on arm of flesh, when storm shall lower, 
Let us depend for safety — for that Arm 
Is able to protect us from all harm. 



TO 



I know not why — some secret chain 

Has ever bound my spirit to thee, 
But still I felt 't was all in vain — 

That 't was not right that I should woo thee. 
Age should with age, and youth with youth, 

In holy wedlock sort together — 
Else 'tis like hoary head of Truth 

Bedecked with Fancy's gaudy feather. 
Then, in the joyous spring of life, 

To choose your mate no longer tarry; 
Exchange the maiden for the wife — 

Youth is the proper time to marry. 
May 1st, 1851. 



AN ELECTION SONG. 

Yes, I would be elected; 
Ambition fires my soul 
To have the world subjected- 
To Reason's just control; 
H 



[114] 

But not to power by mortds, 

Would I elected be — 
Bui to the blissful portals 

Of Heaven, Lord, by thee. 
Not o'er a subject nation 

Would I the sceptre sway — 
But, from a higher station, 

Bid my own lusts obey. 
To rule each vile affection, 

The wayward will restrain 
And bring it in subjection 

To Reason's peaceful reign, 
Is sceptre far more mighty 

Than Queen Victoria sways— 
For, 't is the Lord Almighty 

The subject soul obeys. 
May nth, 1861. 



THE ENGLISti LANGUAGE. 

Had I a message to mankind, 

And mio^ht select the tonoue 
In which 1 would express my mind 

To be hereafter sung; 
Though other tongues be more polite, 

• Melodious and exact, 
Yet still in English I v/ould write 

For this plain simple fact — - 
That, from the course of Providence, 

I might expect to reach 
More through that language, ages hence. 

Than any other speech. 
Then let us as a people seek — 



I 115] 

The old to teach the young — 
To cultivate— to write and speak 
With ease — our mother tongue.* 
June tth, 1851. 



* *'Quel medesimo natural vincolo, O Signori, di pieta, e di 
carita, clie dallanascita str -ttamente ci legacon quel terreno, 
che ci ha pasciuta, e in cui abbiamo tutte le nostre piu car* 
cose, quelio ci costrigne per natio giustissiiiio affetto a coltiyar© 



la lingua in cui siam nati."— Salvini. 



PARODY 
ON Campbell's '^drinking song of munich 

Sweet Iserl were thy sunny realm 

And flowery gardens mine, 
Beneath the. shade of stately elm 

Adorned with spreading vine, 
Vvith one whose heart responsive beat 
And prattling children at our (eet, 

In such a lovely bower 
Would I my life prefer to spend— 
Delighted with a social friend 

To pass an idle hour. 

Like rivers crimsoned with the bsam 

Of yonder planet bright, 
Our lives would be as 't were a dream 

Of ever pure deliglit; 
Nor care should touch our constant hearts 
Save such as sympathy imparts; 

For love can conquer wo; 



[ 116 ] 

And Love and Friendship, kindred powers. 
Could build in Iser's sunny bowers 
A paradise below. 
July, 1851. 



SING US OiNE OF THE SONGS OF ZION," 

When Saul in anguish quailed, 

And no relief could find, 
And ev'rj effort failed 

To calm his troubled mind. 
With music David brought relief 
And soothed the anguish of his grief. 

^Tis thus, in our distress, 

A song of Zion drives 
Away our wretchedness, 

And hope again revives — 
For who can doubt of heaven who feels 
The joys which such a song reveals. 

If such the melody 

To erring mortals given, 
What must the pleasure be 

Of music heard in Heaven, 
When Bngels, rapt in ecstasy, 
All join in solemn symphony. 

Such music once was heard,* 

When man sprang first from earth 

At the omnific word; 

But, at the Second Birth, 

When dust shall spring to life again, 

The sono' shall be a nobler strain. 



* Job xxxviii, 7. 



I. 117 ] 

Lord, when that song is sung 

By thy attendant train, 
May my unworthy tongue 
Join in the joyful strain, 
To celebrate the Secjnd Birth 
Of soul and body,f heaven and earth.! 
August 14, 1853. 



t 1 Corinthians xv: 51, 55. 

t 2 P^ter iii, 13; ReYelations xxi, 1, &c. 



PHAGANTHROPY. 

'T is not alone in Feegee Isles 

That cannibals are fouiid. 
But here, where ev'ry prospect smiles, 

Phaganthropists * abound. 
'T is true, we do not manducate 

The tender flesh of those 
Whom petty strife has made us hate 

Or look upon as foes; 
But by a process more refined — 

Beyond the law's control — 
We lacerate the tender mind 

And feed upon the soul. 
What, though, like them, we do not chew 

The tender bleeding heart. 
Or, for a mess of pottage, stew 

That or some other part; 
Do we not feed upon the hopes — 

The heart — of all the poor, 
And — without naetaphors or tropes — 

Expel them from bur door? 



[ 118 ] 

Do we not seek to overreach 

The uninformed in trade, 
And, hj much subtlety of speech, 

Entrap the trusting maid? 
Do we not overtask the slave — - 

Who in our mercy trusts-— 
That we the greater store may have 

T© spend upon our lusts? 
The modern alchemy computes 

That negro's sweat — of old 
It wasPhilos'phers' stone — transmute^i 

All baser things to gold. 
Far worse than cannibals that lap 

The blood of fallen foes, 
We eeek our neighbor to entrap 

And drink it as it flows — 
The life-blood of the social life — 

The means by which he cheers 
The hearth of a devoted wife 

And all that home endears. 
With us, by slanderer'^s tongue, the heait, 

Oppressed with nameless woe, 
Is pierced more deeply than by dart 

Thrown by a savage foe: 
The Feegee cannibal but eats 

A Hfe, at best, not long — 
The heart must cease, though now it beats 

With life-blood full and strong; 
But e'en the hope that cheers that heart — 

To heathen lands denied— 
To live v/hen soul and body part — 

Wef combat and deride; 
And with a more determined hate — 

Beyond the law's control — 



[ 119 ] 

Our thirst for blood we satiate 
With hfe-bloodof the soul! 
November 30, 1853. 



* From pkagoo, to eat, and anthroopos, a man — man-eaters or 
cannibals. It is formed from the t>reek in the same manner as 
philanthropist, mizanthropist, &c.,'hj prefixing the verb. The 
word usually employed to express the idea is anthropophagite, of 
the same etymology with the verb suffixed — but it did not suit 
the measure, and hence the necessity of coining a new word. — 
The Greeks used both v^ or ds, phaganthroopos smd anthroopophagot, 
to express the same idea. 

t That is, our infidel writers. Rom. 7: 8, 13* 



THE CRISIS. 



A crisis is at hand — the last great Age, 

In which the Fifih Act comes upon the stage 

In acting out the Drama of this world; 

When the Usurper shall from throne be hurled, 

And He shall come whose right it is to reign 

With sainted heroes following in His train — 

When Nature's Sabbath and the Christian's Rest 

Shall dawn upon a world by sin oppressed. 

As prelude to that rest, as harbinger 

Of better things to come, the coming year, 

By singular coincidence, begins 

And ends on Sabbath day: — May pardoned sins 

And rest from sin's hard service still attend 

Us through the year — and even to life's end; 

That we may enter then, for Heaven ripe, 

That rest of which the Sabbath is a type. — 

The 'nirne and times and half-time" have expired, 
The '*two and forty months," which the inspired 



[ 120 ] 

Apostle set as limit to the time 
The Gentile nations, reckless of the crime. 
Should trample under foot the sacred sodj 
That glorious altar where the Son of God, 
Typed bj the lamb there slain in Isaac's stead, 
An all-sufficient sacrifice once bled. — 



The time is near at hand, long prophecied, 
When Armageddon, with his garments dyed 
In blood of many nations, shall appear 
As King Immanuel's second harbinger — 
When He shall come whose right it is to reign, 
With sainted heroes following in His train. 
Already in the east are seen the faint 
Red streaks of light that on the heavens paint 
The blush that constitutes the early dawn 
Oi bright Millennial glory: Nations born 
Within a day — of Zion born — shall own 
Messiah King on David's rightful throne. . 
The struggle of the JSTations has commenced — 
The Lying- Prophet's followers, incensed, 
Are making desperate efforts to avert 
The fate the Living Oracles assert 
Awaits that system of deceptions lies 
By which its votaries hope to gain the skies. 
The Dragon, too, that long has ruled the world 
Shall from his lying tripod soon be hurled — 
Already China, as my readers know, 
Is in commotion for his overthrow — 
And with the Lying- Prophet, and the Beast 
That long has ruled the church through cunning priest. 
Be cast into the lake of fire whose smoke 
Ascends for aye— -as God in Patmos spoke. 
Whether the surging waves shall reach our strand, 



[ m j 

So tar remote, and inundate our land, 
When Babylon^ like rnill-stone, shall be cast 
Into the sea, beneath the fiery blast 
Of God's displeasure, is as yet involved 
In doubt which must by time itself be solved. 

Not Mantuan bard* nor Cumean sibyl, nor 
Those ancient seers that stood upon Mount Hot; 
Nor Job,f nor prophets of still later time 
Who sung Messiah's day in strains sublime; 
Nor he, who doth all other seers eclipse, 
Saint John, who saw the great Apocalypse; 
None saw, in full, the glories that await 
The latter day, the blest Millennial state: 
For, though ihey saw it, and did all rejoice 
To sing its praise in varied tone and voice. 
Still distance did somewhat obscure the view, 
So long the vista which they saw it through. 

Even modern Science would prophetic speak, 
If silent were the Hebrew and the Greek, 
And tell us of a better time to come. 
When man not only, but the creature,** dumb, 
i^nd hence can only in deep groans express 
Its long-borne bondage and deep wretchedness 
Shall yet enjoy a sabbath day of r:est, 
The Jubilee to all by Curse oppressed. 
Full lono- has arm of flesh been overstrained 
And honest poverty in vain complained; 
Full long has ox groaned 'neath the heavy yoke, 
Impelled by ruthless goad, or whip's blood stroke; 
Full long the noble horse has traveled post. 
Or borne his rider to embattled host; 
Full long the slave;j:;J; has labored, by his sweat. 



[ lU ] 

Wealth for his master, bread for se)f to get; 

Full many a tongue, and lungs have tired to preach 

The sacred truths the Greek and Hebrew teach; — 

Steam shall hereafter plough the field for man, 

And do whatever human muscles can; 

The arm of flesh when overstrained grows laint, 

But iron muscles utter ho complaint. 

Whether he plough the ocean or the field, 

Or sledge of forge with strength Herculean wield; 

Whether he travel with Pfyas^us' speed, 

Or turn the mill, or do some other deed; 

The Iron-horse, though seeming anhelose 

And panting as for breath, still onward goes, 

Nor — while still burn its life-enkindling fires 

And flows its hfe-blood — ever stops or tires; 

And from its askes, hke the fabled bird, 

It springs to life again when they are stirred. 

Steam, like the fire which ancient poets say 

Prometheus stole to warm the man of clay, 

Shall give to Hfeless matter grace and form, 

And make it breathe with vital spirit warm. 

jSTo more shall noble horse be rode to death . 
Nor iron lungs be heard to gasp for breath 
And yet the messenger arrive too late 
With all-important mes-^ages of State; 
The Telegraph, like God's own messengers, 
Ubiquitous, or nearly so, appeals, 
As quick as thought, sweeps o'er its trackless path, 
With messages of mercy or of wrath- 
Decrees of Senates, last demands of Kings — 
The markets— and still more important things. 

The day of Pentecost has fully come:-^- 
The Steam Press, like the loosened tongue once dumb, 



[ 123 ] 

Or like the Holy Twelve untaught, shall speak 
To Arab, Parthan, Phrygian, Roman, Greek, 
And wheresoever human foot has trod, 
The wondrous works and purposes o£ God; 
Shall make dumb nature vocal — giver her tongue 
Qi fire to sing tlie Anthem which was sung 
When morning stars and sons of God did sing 
To praise the Lord for making everything; 
Till all mankind shall sing, "with one accord," 
The universal Anthem to the Lord. 

The Sabbath comes- -'t is now the Farasceve,^^ 
And much remains undone: if we believe 
The Lord is coming, ought we not be up 
And doin^, to be readv then to sup 
With Him on His great co^'onation day 
When all the world shall own his rightful sway, 
And swear allegiance and his laws obey? 
Let every creature, then, and every man 
And woman — every child — do all he can — 
For much must yet be done-— *' with one accord" — 
To get things ready for the coming Lord; 
When Nature's Sabbath, and the Christian's Rest 
From sin and sorrow burdening every breast, 
Shall crown the labors of the Second Birth, 
As when the Lord did make the heavens and earth 
And from His labors on the Seventh rest. 
Well pleased in seeing all His creatures blest. . 

Whether Messiah shall in person come 
To reign on earth--or take the righteous borne 
With Him to heaven, is as yet involved 
In doubts which must by time itself be solved, 
it may be that His reign on David's throne 



[ 124 ] 

Shall be in this — that all mankind shall own 
Allegiance to His laws, and, doing right, 
Enjoy the presence of that Holy Light- 
Compared with which the sun itself is dark — 
Once typed by dread Shekinah o'er the Ark — 
The Spirit, visible to human sight. 
Around the heads of saints— hke stellar light 
That, seen by Magi once at Bethlehem, 
Composed Messiah's royal diadem: 
The antitype of ''lambent flame' ^ i\\d^j erst 
Foreshadowed empire to the child they nursed.;]; 
But whether Christ in person shall descend 
To scourge the wicked and His saints defend 
And rule the nations with an iron rod 
Until they own Messiah Son of God; 
Or whether, as supposed, by the display 
Of moral power, all nations in a day 
Of Zion born, shall as their sovereign own 
Messiah King on David's rightful throne; 
Great will the glory be of that great day, 
And grand beyond conception the display 
Of God Almighty's power:- -the dead shall rise 
From out their graves, and God descend the skies, 
And Nature weep, like Mary at the grave 
That all is lost — except the Lord shall save; 
The heavens open and our mother earth 
Endure the travail of the Second Birth, 
And faint te death, like Rachael in the throes 
Of parturition with her countless woes — 
But He had come, who onee had burst the grave, 
The Great Physician, with all power to save. 
December, 1853. 



» Virgil Ec iv. 
t Jobxix:25, 27. 



[ 125 ] 

*» Rom. viii: 22. 

: ^'^^^oH^- ^' ^^^P* ^^' '^'^S^^ ^n- lib- 2, V. 682, (fee. (See 
note, p. 5S.) ^ 

ft -Preparation— the Sabbath-eve of the Jews.^^ Web. Die. 
['Aaiheemeraeenparaskeuee,kaiSabbaton epephooske." Luke 23, 
i)4. See Mark 15:42. 

n I do not regard the relation of master and slave as neces- 
sanlja smtul relation. I believe, however, that when the great 
babbath shall dawn upon the world— that rest of which the Ju- 
bilee was a tjpe-there will be "liberty throughout all the land 
unto all the inhabitants thereof/' 

I^oTE— I am no ^'Millerite," In my opinion, "knoweth no 
man, ho, not the angels of heaven/' either the '^day'^ or the 
year of <^the coming of the Son of Man," or *'of the end 
of the world/' I^or is the wisdom of God more striking- 
ly displayed m any department of his works, whether of 
nature or of grace, open to our inspection, than in withholding 
from the sons of men the mysteries of his Providence. (Acts i, 7. ) 
"Oh blindness to the future kindly given 
That each may act his part assigned by heaven.'' 
I regard even the apocalyptic periods as expressed in circiter or 
round numbers. But I am decidedly of opinion not only from 
the adumbrations of prophecy but also from the "signs of the 
times" that we are approaching a crisis in the ecclesiaslical re- 
lations of the world. ''Hand tanto cessabit car dine rer urn.'' — 
What that crisis is to develop is to the wisest as yet, but as the 
fdint^vision of the blind man v/hen he saw *'men, as trees, walk- 
ing." Still, all that the future is to he—'' smnma fastigia re- 
rum"--is truly but obscurely shadowed forth in the apocalyp- 
tic yision; but dim-sighted man must wait till a stronger light 
delineate more clearly the "shadows" which "comino- events" 
are casting "before them." ^ 

Whether the thne of the revelation and coming of the Lord 
Jesus spoken of in 2d Thess, 1 ; 7, 11 ;2, 8, as well as in many oth- 
er portions of the Bible, bei?re-millenn!al or i?osi-millennial, I 
claim not the ability to decide. I am, however, free to acknowl- 
edge that 2d Thess. 1: 7, 11; 2, 8, taken in connection with the 
adumbrations of the apocalyptic vision, seem to my mind to point 
to that event as jsre-millennial: here, however, I may be mista- 
ken, and it becomes us not to be too confident in maintaining an 
opinion upon a subject which God has wisely left involved in 
much obscurity and doubt. W^e should not seek to be "wise 
above what is written/' or to forestall the order of Providence, 



[ ]26 ] 

but -''watcii" and seek to be "ready:'' "for in such an hour as 
ye think not the Son of Man cometh'' 

"It is well to consider the ways of God in providence, and to 
admire the evolution of His grand purposes; but it is far better 
that each should put the question, What wilt Thou have me to 
do? This, devoutly asked, and when answered (as it will be), 
obediently acted upon, will be found to draw after it more abun- 
dant disclosures of the expected future, than the most gratify- 
ing answer to such questions as, "When shall these things be?" 
and "What is the sign of Thy coming?"— Mace^^o^faTi. 



WAR. 

War, save for sacred Liberty, 

Is God-forbidden — nor 
Can man's contracted vision see 
The whole effects of war; 
Nor pierce that dark and fearful cloud 
That covers battlefield like shroud. 
It is not that we fear to die, 

If God or country call; 
It is not when, nor where, but why, 
And how we are to fall; 
Nor ought we shed our blood in vain. 
An empty name when dead to gam. 
Shali war and carnao-e never cease 

o 

To overrun the land 

And devastate the w^orks of peace 

With ruthless bloody hand — 

Those wc-rks that seek the htsting good 

Of man's extended brotherhood? 

War, like a mighty deluge, sweeps 

O'er fields of waving grain, 
And tender-hearted Mercy weeps, 
Though we from tears refrain, 



[ 127 ] 

To think of that dark sea of blood 
Supplied from that destructive flood. 
VVould that I had some brigher word, 

Some better news to bring; 
But hope, like Noah's absent bird, 
Still plies the weary wing — 
Nor finds the olive branch of peace 
To tell us when all war shall cease. 
January 1, 1854. 



MY B I R T H - D A Y . 

Two score and four already past — 

*'Three score and ten" the usual bound; 
This year, perhaps, may be the last 

That I shall spend above the ground. 
And yet am 1 prepared to leave 

A world no better by my birth? 
Will any child of sorrow grieve 

To see me buried in the earth? 
He who has lived and lei'l no trace 

Of life well-spent, or dangers braved 
And overcome by God's good grace 

And he from sin and sorrow saved, 
Or whose misdeeds shall more mislead 

Than others by example warn, 
Has spent a useless life indeed. 

And had much better ne'er been born. 
The days I 've spent have been but few 

And full of evil: what remain — 
Unless God shall my life renew 

Like eagles' — fewer and more vain. 
Lord^'as Thou hast my days made gad, 



[ 128 ] 

And for the years I Ve evil seen. 
Do Thou, in mercy make me glad, 

More joyful than I 've everbep-n: 
And what my feeble hands have wrought. 

Do Thou establish and prolong, 
The work of many an anxious thought. 

Although 't is but a feeble song. 
May nth, 1854. 



TO SALLY. 

You have sent me a hoitquet, Sally, 

For which accept my thanks; 
And though I would not dally 

Or play young lovers' pranks, 
Yet, still your fragrant flowers 

Remind me of the day 
When, in love's blissful bowers, 

I whiledmy time away. 
But love is but once vernal — 

The heart 's but once in bloom, 
The love that is eternal 

"D1 S but beyond ) .^ , i 

Blooms \ ^,ot this side \ ^^^ ^o^^b. 

Would that my mental powers 
Gould have a second bloom, 
. T Ti { autumnal } a 
And like \^^^^i^^x. summer^ Aowers, 

Exhale a rich perfume; 
That I might, ibr your present 

Of flowers — by court'sy due — 
A task, though hard yet pleasant — 

Cull some flowers of thought for you. 



[ 129 ] 

But, long has my mind's garden 

Lain waste — undressed by toil; 
The storms of life oft harden 

The fields of mental soil: 
But still, v/here flowers have flourished, 

Though now no flowers may bloom— 
The soil which once has nourished 

Retains their rich perfume. 
'T is thus the heart's last treasure, 

Its gratitude, outlives 
The most exquisite pleasure 

That fancy's floweret givea. 
Then please accept my offer 

Of thanks for the bouquet 
Your friendship dared to proffer, 

Till I can better pay. 
But your mind is in flower — 

For you are in life's spring, 
And can, from fancy^s bower, 

Cull me anoflTering; 
Thenr, send a fragrant nosegay, 

The flowers of thought, arrayed 
As your fancy to dispose may 

Choose — such flowers never fade. 
May 23d, 1864, 



TO SALLY. 

I have culled you a nosegay, Sally, 
From Flora's own domain, 

In this once lovely valley 
Which has long neglected lain. 

Accept these fragrant flowers 



[ 130 ] 

For those you sent to me, 
Since I could in Fancy's bowers 

Find no flow'ret worthy thee. — 
From flowers, the young and cheerful 

Inhale a fresher breath; 
But eyes thai are dim and tearful 

See flowers adumbrate death. 
Though bright, these flowers are fading; 

To fade, the flowers all bloom — 
To show there 's no evading 

The dark and cheerless tomb. 
But — as from leaves of roses, - 

Though long since they did bloom — 
Where Virtue's dust reposes, 

Exhales a rich perfume. 
Once did a lovely flower 

Bloom in this lovely vale — 
^S'ow flowerless is its bovver, 

Save the breath its leaves exhale: 
But when the Spring eternal 

Shall loose cold Winter's ^^''^.^^'^- ' 

Jreign 

That flower from sleep hibernal, 

Shall spring to life again. 

May ^8th 1854. 



TO SARAH. 

1 had gone as far as Mar ah 
And drunk at its bitter brink — 

Your flowers, like Moses, Sarah, 
Made its water fit to drink. 



[ 131 ] 

But I must press oiiward, Sarah, 

Through the wilderness of life, 
To Elim, Rephidiin, Tarah, 

To Meribah, rock of strife: 
And should I arrive there, weary, 

Athirst, and ready to sink, 
In wilderness dark and dreary, 

Who '11 give me water to drink? 
Will some hand that gathers roses 

The branch of euL^hantment throw 
Which, like the rod of Moses, 

Shall bid the water flow? 
The angel of mercy often 

Is veiled in a mortal frame — ■ 
The feminine virtues soften 

The heart God would reclaim: 
And, like the smitten mountain, 

The Meribah of our life 
Becomes a flowing fountain 

At the bidding of a wife. 
June 9th, 1864. 



•TO EDWm.'^ 



'*Thou *st twined a garland fair and bright, 
The sweetest flow'rets Spring discloses, 
The fragrant pink, tho rose of white, 
And blended them with blushing roses. 

'*Thenoh! accept the thanks of her. 
Who now on thee the task imposes, 
To wake thy lyre's notes soft and clear. 
Whose sweetness far exceeds thy roses. 



[ 132 ] 

"While in the glowing prime of youth, 
Ere Pleasure's path the thorn discloses, 
May *st thou escape each snare, and truth 
Unsullied shii.e, Uke pure white roses. 

"And when thy pilgrimage is o'er, 

And Death's dark curtain round thee closes, 

Oh! may thy spirit upward soar, 

Like the sweet fragrance of thy roses. 

Sophia Hklew. 
May 14, 1830. 



POSTSCRIPT 

to the 

'^OUTLINES'' OF A PIC-NIC ADDRESS. 

There is a love as high above the love 
Of sex or country as the heaven 's above 
The earth — the love of God to human race, 
Though fallen, still the object of his grace — 
That love which brought Immanuel from the skies. 
By which the saved at last will heavenward rise. 
Who that is wont to look back and contrast 
The living Present with the buried Past, 
And views the rich repast before us spread. 
Thinks not of those ''hve barley loaves" of bread, 
And *'two small fishes" which the Lord did bless 
And give the multitude in wilderness, 
When on the grass ''five thousand" did recline 
To eat the food produced by Power divine. 



[ 133 ] 

Time was when this land was a wilderness 
And our forefathers wer.e in great distress 
With barley loaves and fishes and no more, 
But God did also bless their simple store 
Until the barley loaves and fishes small 
Have been increased to furnish food for all, 
And yet so wonderful has been the gain 
'^Twelve baskets" full of surplus still remain. 
What shall be done with this great overplus 
With which the God of Heaven hath prospered us? 
Are there not multitudes, in deep distress, 
Amid the wide world's waste and wilderness, 
Now starving for the bread which we eould give 
And without which they cannot hope to live? 
I speak not of the barley loaves, the bread 
That millions toil for, eat, and yet are dead. 
Christ is the hving bread. He came to give 
Himself for us that eating we might live-- 
Kot for ourselves alone, but like the dough 
Imbued with leaven, to make others so. 
The food that perishes is little vvorth--- 
Proceeding from it must return to earth; 
Hut faith in Christ lays hold, His word assures, 
Of food which to eternal life endures-— 
And millions, starving for this bread now cry 
To us like children. Will you let us die? 
(^od's word is manna to the starvino* soul-— 
We who 've received so largely, shall we dole 
Out sparingly to those in heathen lands 
Who now the bread of life ask at our hands? 
Bhall we who spend so much to gratify 
Our taste for social pastime---nor do I 
Regard such outlay as at all a waste 
Of God's rich bounties; we have all a taste 



[ 134 ] 

For social life whicli we may gratify 
Wilhoufc displeasing God:---Shall we deny 
To famished souls that banquet of good things 
Which proclamation of the gospel brings? 
Then let our surplus all to God be given 
In setting up on earth the*reign of heaven. 
But, as for me^ while life and thought remain, 
All that I have, all that I hope to gain, 
All that I am, all that I hope to be. 
Help me, Lord, to consecrate* to thee. 
July 27, 1864. 

* This is not to be understood as the vow of a zealot "who 
yainlj hopes to purcnase Heaven by literally giving all that he 
has to the church; but as the resolution of that "wicked and 
slothful servant'' who had received the one talent, and who was 
afraid and went and digged in the earth and hid his Lord's 
money, to dig up that talent and use it in the service of hi* 
Master; that, at his coming, he may receive his own with inter- 
est. 



MY Ol^LY HOPE. 



In Jesus' death alone. I trust 

For pardon, and in Holy Guest 
To keep my soul, revive my dust, 

And fit me for the heavenly rest. 
Thou Holy Spirit of all grace, 

Who only bright effluence art 
Of Light original, all space 

Pervading, but, in humble heart 
As temple, choosing still to dvNell. 

Although involved in moral night 
Till Thy own beams from thence dispel 



[ 136] 

Ita darkness with Thy better light; — . 
Whose energies it was that gave 

To lifeless dust its living form, 
And who wilt yet from out the grave 

Revive that dust and make it warm 
With breath of better second life 

When Nature, as decreed, shall die 
In final elemental strife; — 

To Thee for help and strength I cry; 
My wounded broken spirit heal; 

Its fallen energies revive; 
That I Thy quick 'ning grace may feel; 

To better life thus made alive: 
For Thine it is still to apply 

The blood which was on Calvary shed; 
To pardon guilt, to justify — 

Else still the soul 's unpardoned, dead: 
Do Thou, then. Holy Spirit leave 

My soul not wholly destitute. 
Although my many sins. must grieve 

Thy presence; still to me impute 
The righteousness Immanuel wrought 

By holy life, by dying pain, 
That, pardoned sin, in deed, word, thought, 

Man still might hope to live again: 
And do Thou with Thy light dispel 

Those gloomy fears that cloud the mind — ■ 
The fear of death — the fear of hell, 

And make me to Thy will resigned; 
And help me with Thy strength to gird 

My mind's weak loins to firm resolve 
To do whatever Thy holy word 

And providence on me devolve; 
For Thou dost o'er the troubled heart, 



t 136 ] 

As erst upon the deep, when rude 
And dark* were all things, to impart 

Light, energy and order, brood: 
And, till Thou hast, provoked, withdrawn, 

No more to grant Thy cheering light, 
The morn of hope will surely dawn. 

Though long and dark be Sorrow's night:— 
For Thine it is, within, without. 

The soul and nature to control — 
Like sunbeam to dispel the doubt 

That still beclouds the pardoned soul: 
Heal Thou my heart for Jesus' sake — 

Though broken, 'tis a broken stone; 
Yet even of stones Thy power can make 

A habitation for Thy throne. 



* The Septuagint has aoratos '^invisible — invisible by its ovfnik 
nature" — [dark,] and akataskeuastos , "unwrought — in a rough 
state" [rude], instead of ''without form and void," Gen. 1:2. — 
Ovid has 

"RudiSf indigestaque molei." 



L OV E - S I C K POETRY. 

In visiting. some of my friends among the romantic sce- 
nery of the Kentucky river, I found a young man far 
gone in that singular disease, love-sickness; and express- 
ing my sympathy for him, he readily communicated to 
me his situation, and the poetical lines which he had ad- 
dressed to his beloved. As 1 am, perhaps, transgressing 
the rules of propriety in making his situation, without his 
consent, public, I will only quote the concluding re- 
marks, which I think may be of public utility. After 
giving a touching description of his forlorn condition, his 
mind seems to brighten up with a lively hope, and he 
concludes thus : 

"My love with constant fervor burns; 
To thee my every feeling turns 

As needle to the pole; 
And should you feel this sacred flame 
And would consent to wear my name, 

?rly broken heart is whole! 
Who then could tear our hearts asunder, 
That like two strings of India rubber 
flight join in one and stretch forever , 

And never, never break I '^ 

It is a pity that all of us had not the elasticity of feed- 
ing which this youth exhibits, which, like the India rub- 
ber, can bear stretching to any extent without breaking. 
There is no danger of his case becoming desperate, aa 
long as he keeps his Gum-elasiic heart; but if he lose that, 
let him take care ! Taking the above with the love-sick po- 
etry of the newspaper press into consideration, 1 am led to 
the following reflection: — Is the true poetical ofour nature^, 
nothing but the steam, generated by the fires of love in 
the heart, as the boiler, supplied from the lachrymal 



I. 140 ] 

*ount, and let oiff, to prevent explosion, tlirough the safe- 
ty-valve of a goose quill, while the mouth is the chimney 
through which escape ordinarily the smoke and puffing, 
the sighs and groanings of a disconsolate lover? If so, 
the old adage *'poeta nascitur — non fit/' is falser for 
love 7nak€s OUT poets, who agam by their writings make 
lovers, who consequently become poets. Hence it ap- 
pears, that the true Parnassus is nothing but the mount 
of difficulty ever found in the paths of true lovers: and 
the Castalian fount so famed and ot which so many have 
imagined they have drunk, is only their own lachryma- 
tions on arriving at the foot of this mountain of obstacles, 
that separates them from the mueh loved objects of their 
hopes and fears — which receives all the witchery and 
charms with which they had contemplated their fair 
ones whom ;hey metamorphose into Muses, and thus it 
becomes to them the sacred mount of Song. Is 
there no way to teach the people that this excess of pas- 
sion is temporary madness? that the tears they shed on 
account of their hard hearted dulcineas will be wanted 
in afterlife to v/ater the plants of connubial affection and 
constancy? that a heart so often and deeply wourded by 
the darts of Cupid will be incapable, like a perforated 
vessel, of containing the pure wine of life that niakftli 
glad the heart of man? Besides, this every-body writing 
poetry must be stopped. What would a nation of poets 
do? Let the poetry of our feelings be vented in acls for 
the good of tlie community, instead of words for the 
amusement of the idle; let the harmony and easy flow 
of words be shown in their converse with the world, and 
let their well turned lines be made with the plow and 
there inill be no more poets starved (o death. The poet- 
ical on paper may be indulged on occasions *'few and 
far between,'* when it is not only appropriate but actual- 



[ 141 ] 

ly called for. Who that wishes to live would tend only 
a garden of flowers*! He would soon find that he would 

''Die of a rose in aromatic pain/'' 
If he wishes to live and be healthy, he must cultivate 
also his cornfield, the esculent vegetable and the healing 
herb. I am not endeavoring to discourage genius from 
plucking occasionally the flowers of imagination; but it 
were well if they were plucked sparingly from plants giv- 
ing promise of future fruit. If our city is in the poetical 
latitude of Athens, we must remember our territory in- 
cludes that which covered the country of Lycurgus. — 
We must be ^> working people as well as a thinking peo- 
ple. We must importune our Legislature for a system 
of common schools in which practical knowledge must 
be taught the people; in which they will be taught that 
talents and learning are useless, except so far as they are 
conducive to the developement of the physical resources 
of our country, to the improvement of the physical, in- 
tellectual and moral condition of man. Let learning be 
brought, as we boast of the administration of justice, to 
the door of every man; and let it be the means of awak- 
ening the energies of our population to the glorious work 
of improving our country, by bringing the waste soil of 
our territory into cultivation, and calling up the latent 
talent of our people into action. 'J he only way to pre- 
serve sound moials in a people is to keep them employ- 
ed. The public mind, like the waters of our country, 
must be kept in motion, or it will stagnate and send forth 
a noxious miasm dangerous to the moral health of the 
community. Something must be done, or a sickly senti- 
mentalism, more deadly in its consequences than any 
epidemic that efiects only the body, will sweep over the 
country, carrying off, with its poisonous infection, the 
fairest portion of our population. But enough. Letus- 



[ 142 ] 

teach the people to marry early as our Franklin recom- 
mended, without the romance of courtship necessary te 
the production of a new novel; to settle themselves, go 
to work, attend to their business, be virtuous and they 
will be happy, and our country safe, independent and 
prosperous. 
July 15, 183^. 



KENTUCKY, ''THE LAND OF SONG/' m 

Major Noah says, in the compliment which he pays 
Kentucky poetry, that there is nothing in the country 
calculated to give poetical inspiration. Now we differ 
from the Major. Take Kentucky in its length and 
breadth, from the alluvial bottoms of the Father of riv- 
ers, through the gently undulating surface of Green riv- 
er, the more diversified scenery ot Elkhorn,. to the wild 
mountainous districts of the east, and where will you 
find a greater variety of landscape, more romantic, spir- 
it-stiring scenery, more beautiful rivers, or wilder cas- 
cades? What river more majestic than the mighty Mis- 
sissippi? or beautiful than our own Ohio? What more 
beautifully serpentine in its meanderings than the river 
which bears the proud name of our State, walled in with 
cliffs the most stupendous and awfully grand that the im- 
agination can conceive? Often, when musing on some 
elevated precipice that overhangs its waters, whence 
"Prospect immense spreads out on all sides round/"' 
have we exclaimed — Here is landscape as beautiful and 
picturesque for the painter, as oriental scenery or Alpine 
heights; fountains as pure and inspiring, for the poet, as 
Pierian spring; and grandeur in ail that may be seen in 



[ 143 ] 

couQtry or people, calculated to give eublimitj of 
thought and eloquence of expression to the orator and 
statesman. But it is the vicinity of Lexington, situated 
in the poetical latitude of Aihcns, that constitutes, as ad- 
mitted by all, the garden spot of the new world — anoth- 
er Garden of Eden, in which the flowers of poetry and 
pure sentiment, the only relics of the Paradisiacal bow- 
ers of innocence and happiness, find a congenial soil, 
and might, with pains and attention, be brought to an 
enviable state of perfection and beauty. There is no 
doubt much truth in attributing our poetry, in a measure, 
to **the romantic genius of the people;" but if the Ma- 
jor would pay us a visit, we think he would find that, it 
is as much the romantic aspect of our country, as the 
legends connected with it as the **Bloody Ground," that 
conspires to generate the sentiment. 
.1838. 



SILK CULTURE. 

While some are devoting their time to improvement 
in labor-saving machinery by which the work of the 
many may be done by the few, others of us should be 
engaged in finding new pursuits by which the many, 
thus exiled from tiie fields of industry, may be employ- 
ed, or we will gain nothing in morals, by our improve- 
ment in mechanism. He who discovers the means by 
which one hand may do the work of a hundred, is hail- 
ed a.'benstactor of mankind; but he who finds employ- 
ment for the hundred is more deserving of the appella- 
tion. After much reflection upon the subject, we are of 
opinion that there is no pursuit, having in view one of 



[ 144 ] 

the two great ends of all human labor, (the clothing and 
feeding of the human family,) calculated to engage so 
many hands as the culture of silk. It not only proposes 
employment for every family, but for every member of 
that family. It recommends itself equally to the poor 
andjthe rich. There is no part of Kentucky where it 
may not be introduced, as there is no portion of the State 
in which the mulberry does not grow spontaneously. — 
Besides the salutary effects on the morals of the commu- 
nity, in banishing idleness and its accompanying tempta- 
tions; being clothed in silk, the Avork of their own hands, 
would create a more independent spirit among the peo- 
ple and prompt the humblest peasant to feel that, not on- 
ly in political rights, but in his apparal he was on an 
equality with the princes of the earth. There is much 
moral reflection connected with the silk- worm; the mot- 
to so apphcable to them, '*non sibi sed alies,'' [not for 
themselves but for others,] should soften the naluial sel- 
fishness of the human heart into acts of benevolence and 
generosity; and industry often ceases its labors, while at- 
tending the silk-worm, absorbed in reflections the most 
profound, tracing, in its various stages of existence, ana- 
logies the most pleasing to the aspirations of the human 
heart, ever buoyant with the hope of its own immortahty. 



POPULAR EDUCATION. 



I have long felt a deep interest in the establishment 
of Common Schools in Kentucky. Colleges and Uni- 
versities should receive the fostering care of government, 
but they cannot be made accessible to the great mass of 
the people. The people, the masses, must be educa- 



[ 145 ] 

ted, or our attempt at Free Government will prove a fail- 
ure. Without an efficient system of Common Schools, 
who can tell how much talent is lost, which, properly di- 
rected, might prove not only of incalculable service to 
our common countrv, but a blessing to the human fami- 

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air/' 

Often, in passing through the less cultivated districts 
of my native State, have I observed such gems, such 
flowers— many a youth around whose head was seen 
playing the lambent flame of genius; and I have fancied 
that I heard the Goddess of Liberty, like Tanaquil of 
old, exclaim: *'Vide' n' tu puerum hunc quern tarn 
humili cultu educamus? Scire licet, hunc lumen quon- 
dam rebus nostris dubiis futurum, prsesidiumque afflictis. 
Proinde, materiem ingentis publice privatimque decoris 
omni indulgentia nostra nutriamus." — [Livy.] 

Popular education is the great palladium of our liber- 
ties; and they who, actuated by an ardent desire for 
their country's welfare, co-operate in establishing in Ken- 
tucky a system of common schools — by which educa- 
tion with all the pleasures of which the cultivated mind 
is susceptible will become the common inheritance of 
our children — will be justly regarded by posterity as the 
true friends and benefactors ot the State, when the mem- 
ory of mere time-serving politicians and all opposers ot 
popular education will have been consigned to a merit- 
ed oblivion. 



[ 146 ] 

UNIYERSALISM— THE PHILOLOGY OF THE 

QUESTiOiN. 

This seems narrowed down to tlie meaning of aioon in 
Greek — eis ton alooQza, forever. 

1 will premise that the diptbtbong ci in Greek be- 
^ comes ce in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, and, simply, e in 
English; (as, aither, cether, elher; aif/ls, agis, egis;) and 
thai the Greek or ^olic digcimma appears, sometimes, in 
cognate and derivative Languages as an/, and, some- 
times, as v;^ and, that in languages of the same family, 
the characteristic difference, or that which constitutes 
one lano'uaofc different from another, is rather termina- 
tional than radical; os, e, on; or oov; us, a, um; re, er; er; 
being respectirvely corresponding or common sufiixes. or 
ternimatives in Greek, Lailn, Anglo-Saxon and English. 
These premises being adirritted, (and no etymologist 
Tfili question their correctness;) it will at once appear 
that the following are not only corresponding expres- 
sions in the four languages referred to, but that they are, 
radically, the 5<?.m5 wjrd. \h: al ton, [or, digammated, 
=r^iFoo7i,^ Greek; cevum, Latin; (Bfre, Anglo-Saxon; ecer, 
English — all derived from c^i, Greek, [at, ^^jHc (orm; 
aiy An^]o-S/;xon; ay% English,] always, and oon, being: 
alw jy< bzing. 

Eierna\ eternity ^ ko., are, also, according to our best 
etymologists, more remote but direel; derivatives from 



'^li coLiiJo'o be ascertained with precision what was the pro- 
nunciatioiiof i\\& dig amina, which, underwent some changes. — 
to its origin, it was probably a soft gatteral sound." 

'itis probable that the digamina final, or before a consouaiit, 
was pronounced like our F, and, before a vowtl, like cur Y." 

•'The La:iu dialect naturally adoplcM:! the -^olic digamm a 
which it expressed generally by V/'- Valpys Greek Grammcr. 



I 147 ] 

nioon [aiFcon:^ **(£'ernits^ contr. pro cevilurnus, ab 
cBvum'' — which last, we have shown, comes from aioon, 
[aiFoon.^ The origin of this suffix iernus ov turnus oc- 
curring in Latin words, (as sempHernuSy diulurnus^ 
<kc.) is involved in obscurity: it seems equivalent to 
our English suffix, lasting, denoting continuance or 
duration. Hence, aioynios, Greek; CRternu^y i. e. ceviter' 
nusj Latin; and eternal and everlasting, English, are, 
also, radically, the same toord. Will universalists deny 
that this is the true etymology of these words, or will 
they give us the idiomatic Greek expression for forever, 
if it be not cis ton aioona? 
1848. 



PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES AND OB- 
LIQUITY OF THE ECLIPTIC. 

When en^aoed, some vears since, in teachinar, I was in 
the habit, when attempting to explain the Precessioii of the 
Equinoxes, of ph'cing the terrestrial Globe .(in a frame 
which I had constructed forthepurpose,) on pivots working 
in cavities drilled into the brass meridian over the poles of 
the Ecliptic; so as to represent, to the eye, the phenom- 
enon in question, by giving to the globe a motion similar 
to that which the earth has in nature round the axis of 
the ecliptic. 

While thus engaged, the thought occurred to me, that, 
instead of my hand, a pov/er [magnetism] analogous to, 
if not a modification of that operating in nature, might 
be made to impart the requisite motion to the globe; and 
thus illustrate, and, I might add, demonstrate, by appa- 
ratus put into operation by an invinsible power of na- 



i. 148 ] 

tate, the theory, if true, of the caicse of the Precession 
of the Equinoxes, as follows: Let there be a small 
globe representing the earth, made of very light materi- 
als (so as to occasion as little friction as possible in turn- 
ing,) and entirely free from any ferrugenous matter ex- 
cept a hajid of iron surrounding the globe over its equa- 
tor. This band of iron will represent that redundancy 
of matter about the earth's equator, the attraction of 
which, rotating obliquely to the planes of their orbits, 
by the sun and moon, causes the phenomenon under 
consideration. Let this globe be fixed to turn easily 
about the poles of the ecliptic. Let the globe be put in- 
to regular motion on its own axis by any of the usual 
modes ot producing rotary motion by galvanism or elec- 
tricity introduced through the poles of the ecliptic (the 
whole apparatus,, of course, being insulated.) Now let 
a magnet of sufficient power and at a proper distance, 
to represent the sun's attraction, (and a second, if de- 
.sired, to represent the moon,) be made pass around the 
globe in the plane of the ecliptic in proper relative time 
to its rotation; (or, if applied to an orrery of nice ad- 
justment and construction, the earth wuth its attendant 
and revolving moon, would revolve around a large cen- 
tral magnet representing the sun;) and thus all the con- 
ditions necessary to the production of the precession of 
the equinoxes would be represented, in mmialure, and, 
the theory being true, the poles of the earth will be found 
to revolve round the poles of the ecliptic, as in nature. 

It is evident, on reflection, that ivere in not for the ro. 
iation of the earth on its axis, oblique to the 2jJa7ie of the 
ecl'pi'i.c^ the attraction of the magnet, representing the 
sun, would draw the ring or band of iron, attached firm- 
ly to the globe, towards the ecliptic, by giving it a mo- 
tion round the line of its nodes; its inclination therefore, 



[ 149 ] 

to the ecliptic would be deminished by the mean action 
of the sun, the nodes all the time continuing stationary, 
and eventually, the pole of the earth would coincide with 
the pole of the ecliptic. But the rotation of the earth 
on its axis, according to the received theory, preventing 
this; it remains to account for and demonstrate the cause 
of the diminution of the ohliquity of the Ecliptic: which 
has been going on since the infancy of astrono- 
my, and which, we are assured, will continue untd it 
arrives at a certain minimum, and then it will increase 
to maximum again, &c. 

By applying the above principles of magnetic attrac- 
tion to an orrery of elaborate workmanship and of prop- 
er proportions, were it practicable to construct such a 
one, the larger planets and the sun being represented 
by magnets of relative intensities to their respective at- 
tractive forces, as in nature, and the poles of the globe 
representing the earth being made so they could ap- 
proach, with the least possible friction, the poles of the 
ecliptic; both precession of the equinoxes and dimin- 
tion in the obliquity of the ecliptic would [and nutation 
might also] be represented at one and the same time by 
the same apparatus: and as* cycles as well as circles 
would be represented in miniature, the long interval be- 
tween maximum and minimum — too long for the truth of 
the prevailing theory to be tested by actual observation 
for ages yet to come — may be reduced to a short period 
by the wheels of the orrery being made to outstrip those 
of time; and thus the strongest confirmation of the truth 
of the theory be furnished in actually beholding the ob- 
liquity increase y after reaching its^minimum. 

I confess, however, that when engaged in represent- 
ing the precession, as above spoken of, and viewing the 
subject" more mechanically than mathematically, 1 am 



[ 150 ] 

sometimes inclined to doubt the correC^tness of the re- 
ceived theory, although endorsed by such illustrious 
names, and to attribute the diminution in the obliquity 
of the eliptic to the direct action of the sun and moon on 
the redundancy of matter about the earth's equator not 
being altogether neutralized by the earth's rotation; and 
consequently, that the obliquity >vill crntinue to dimin- 
ish, should the rate of the earth's rotary motion contin- 
ue the same as it is now, until the poles of the earth, 
describing, by both ])recession of the equinoxes and 
diminution of obliquity of the ecliptic, ?n accentric spi- 
ral, will come at last, after *'an immense period of 
ages" to coincide with the poles of the ecliptic. 

But whatever may be the cause of the diminution of 
the obliquity of the eliptic, it is, I believe, a well estab- 
lished facty that it has been diminishing from time im- 
memorial, and the rale being assumed to be constant and 
regular, its bearing on chronology, where the observa- 
tions may have been sufficiently accurate, is obvious. — 
With this view I made some calculations in 1845, 
founded on the present rate in the diminution of the 
obliquity of the ecliptic, to ascertain at what period the 
tropic of Cancer extended as far North as Syene in Egypt 
Lat. 24 deg. 5 min. 23 sec, v/here, it is recorded, on 
the summer solstice the imao-e o^' the sun was reflected 
perpendicular and perfect from the v/ater in a well in 
that cicy — which, of course, was under the tropic. The 
date arrived at by the calculations running back beyond 
the flood (according to the received chronology) my 
calculations were laid asi'Je, as founded on incorrect 
data [observations;] but a lew days after, when locking 
over some chronological tables in Keith's Demonstra- 
tion of the Christian Religion, I found that the date 
obtained by my calculations a few days previous, was 



[ 151 ] 

exactly the same ''as the Egyptian era of Rossellini," 
(who deduced his period from xManetho and hierogly[.! i- 
cal data,) viz. B. C. 2712. This striking coincidence 
has strengthened mv faith in the correctness of the ob- 
servations, and inclined me to look with more favor 
than formerly on the opinions of those who maintain 
that the world is older than the received chronology 
makes it. 

August 10, 1848. 



THE EARTH ONCE SURROUNDED BY A RING. 

A New Theory of the Flood . 

I have long entertained the opinion that the '-'waters 
above the firmament," mentioned in Genesis 1: 6, 7? 
once surrounded the earth like the ring around the plan- 
et Saturn; and that it was the precipitation of this water 
upon the earth which caused the flood, 2 Pet., 3: 5, 6. 
In an argument upon this subject some 17 years ago, I 
assumed, from analogy, the ftuidVy of the rings of Sa- 
turn, which has recently been- demonstrated by mathe- 
matical calculations. (See American Almanac, 1855; 
Article, '^Recent Discoveries in Astronomy.") 

We greatly err when, according to the prophecy of 
Peter, with the scoffers, we suppose *'all things continue 
as they were from the beginning of the creation.'' Peter 
shows clearly, if 1 do not mistake his meaning, that all 
things have not continued as they were **of old," or **from 
the beginning of the creation," for he says they are wil- 
fully ignorant of this very thing, that "of old," or former- 
ly^ the heavens and the earth were ^'standing otit o/* the 
water and in the water, by vvhich the world that then was 



[ 152 ] 

being overflowed with water perished." The Apostle 
here evidently contrasts the heavens and the earth that 
*'were of old" with the heavens and the earth that "are 
now," as entirely different or distinct in something; and 
what, from the text, is that difference, except the absence 
now of that *• water above the firmament," in which. the 
earth was once enveloped, and by which the world thai 
then was being overflowed with water perished?" Now, 
is it not evident that the Apostle not only contrasts the 
ante-diluvian world with the post-deluvian world, but he 
also contrasts the water ^^out of^' which, with the water 
**i72" which the earth was ^'standing" before the flood? 
It seems so to my mind. The adjunct ''of old," and 
the prepositions ''out of" and '*in" refer to both the 
heavens and the earth. This no grammarian will con- 
trovert, nor will any commentator, I presume, contend 
that the word *'heavens" includes the *'fixed stars," or 
the whole of even our own solar system; for it was not 
the solar system, but our own planet with its own heav- 
ens, its atmosphere, &c., that ^'perished:" and this is 
the sense which I attach to the word ^'heavens" in Gen. 
1:8. It seems clear to my mind that Peter speaks of 
iivo distinct bodies of water to which the earth and its at- 
mosphere sustained different relations expressed by dif- 
ferent prepositions, as opposite as ^*out of^' and **r/i," 
for it is difficult to conceive that the earth sustained both 
these relations at one and the same time; and if this posi- 
tion be admitted, 1 think the almost necessary inference 
is, that the water to which Peter refers in the 6th veise is 
the same water referred to in Gen. 1: 7, as **above the 
firmament;" and, as a still further inference we may 
contend with Keith, not only ''that the present state of 
the organic world has not gone on from all eternity," but 
that ''nature herself," as well as revelation, "testifies of 



[ 153 ] 

the interposition of almighty and creative power, not on- 
ly after the earlli was divided from the waters, but even 
after the present order of animal existemce, man except- 
ed, had been established/' And the Apostle farther in- 
timates that a still greater change or subversion of the 
present order of nature awaits our planet. Not only do 
the evidences of the flood everywhere to be seen, but the 
overthrow of *'the cities of the plain" teach us that God 
has mterfered in the natural, and moral relations of this 
world, but the traditions even of the heathen world, no 
less than that ''more sure word of prophecy," the Bible, 
point to the time when God will again visit the earth in 
judgment. 

The flood of water was a type 

Of that approaching awiui time, ** 
Wheu, for the judgment fully ripe, 

Earth must be purged again of crime. 
Tlie mighty God, who once did purge 

'I'he earth with water in his ire, 
When to repentance He shall urge 

The world, will purge it then with fire. 

BuL it will be askpd, in what form did ''the waters 
above the firmament'' exist? Reason, no less than anal- 
ogy, suggests that it probably and almost necessarily 
surrounded the earth about its equatorial parts, in a form 
somewhat similar to the ring which now surrounds the 
planet Saturn, which has recently been demonstrated to 
be ''a fluid somewhat denser than water flowing around 
the planet." Milton's paraphrase of Genesis darkly al- 
ludes to such a state of things: 

Again God said, let there be firmament 

Amid the waters, and let it divide 

'\ he waters from the water?; and God made 

The firmament expanse of liquid pure 

Transparent elemental air, diffused 

In circuit to the uttermost convex 



[ 154 j 

Of this great round; partition firm and sure^ 

The ivaiers underneath from those above 

Dividing; for as the earth, so he the world 

Built on circumjluous waters calm, in wide 

Cxystalline ocean." [Paradise Lost, Bcok T. 

There is a point beyond the earth's atmosphere which 
may be computed, at ^yhich water or '*a fluid somewhat 
denser than v/ater"^- \Yould remain suspended by the cen- 
trifugal and centripetal forces operating in equilibrio,. 
The theory here contended for, if admitted, will explain 
and harmonize with many things that cannot be other- 
wise explained and disposed of. It will account for the 
perpetual Spring of the ancient poets — ''Ver erat cBier- 
niinL" — unless that is to be considered but ^ tradition of 
the paradisiacal state of^ our first parents; as this envelope 
of water f^bout the earth's equator w^ould act as an awning 
iQ WTvrding off the direct rays of the sun from the inter- 
tropical regions, and by reflecting its light and heat from 
its sides into the circumpolar parts, would make a very 
nearly uniform temperature of a genial spring-like char- 
acter over almost the whole surface of the earth; which 
will also account for the remains of tropical plants and 
animals found in high northern latitudes, Tlie precip- 

*This fluid which Prcf. Peirce describes as being ''somewhal 
denser than water/' is doubtless the binoxide,or peroxide of hy- 
drogen, which is, according to Turner, of the specific gravity 
1.452. This fluid is well adapted to what may be supposed lo 
b.8 the climate of Saturn, where the protoxide of hydrogen (wa- 
ter) would certainly freeze and remain a solid; and in all proba- 
bility, the water which 1 have supposed to have been once 
abovethe firmament of our own phinet was in the form of the 
peroxide of hydrogen — "which is a colorless transparent liquor 
without odor,'' and '-preserves its liquid form at all degrees of 
cold.towhich.it has hitherto been exposed. "At the tempera- 
ture of 59 ^ F. it is decomposed, being converted, into water aii.d. 
oxygen, gas." 



[ 155 ] 

itation of this water upon the earth, as supposed, will 
account for the flood of Noah, whhont supposing, cs 
Whistoa and others have done, the collision of the earth 
with a comet, and will also harmonize with the opinion 
of some geologists, that there is more water on the face 
of the earth than originally belonged to it. It also com- 
ports with the strong language of the Bible in the de- 
scription of the flood; Gen. 7,-11. 

It is probable, almost certain, that the order of nature 
was difi'erent before the flood from what it has been 
sinca. The great change in the duration of human life 
which took place at the flood, w^as doubtless connected 
with some equally great change which then took place 
in the ceconomy of nature. f The equable temperature 
which we have supposed the envelope of Vv'ater about the 
earth's equator to have produced, doubtless contributed 
to antediluvian longevity. It is also probable — almost 
certain, that it never rained before the flood. The en- 
velope of *'water sbove the firmament'* may have ope- 
rated to prevent rain. The Bible gives no account of rain 
before the flood. In fact, it says expressly that up to a 
certain time ^Uhe Lord God had not caused it it to rain 
on the earth." Gen 2:5. The next allusion to rain in 



tr would suggest, as one probable physical cause for tho 
shortening of hii.'oan life after the flood, tbs g^i^ater amount of' 
oxygen gas io the earlh's atmospliere, by which all warmr 
blooded animils, and more particularly man, from the known 
effacis of oxygen gas on the system, would breathe quicker ami 
consequently live a shorter life. If the water which I have sup- 
posed to have' been once above our firmament, was in the form of 
the peroxide of hydrogen, upon its precipitation upon the earth 
it would hi immediately decomposed into the protoxide of hy- 
drogen, or ordinary water, and oxygen gas, which, being set 
free, would add greatly to the amount of oxygen gas previously 
existing in the earth's atmosphere. 



[ 156 ] 

the Bible is at the flood. The phraseology of the Bible 
ia reference to the rainbow is pecuUar: *'I do set my 
bow in the cloud'* — in the present tense. Gen. 9: 13. 
This is the first allusion in the Bible to a cloud, and it is. 
after the flood. Had it rained before the flood — if the 
laws of nature were the same then as now— there would 
have been a rainbow produced in certain positions of the 
sun in regard to the falling drops of rain; and the bow, 
which had previously existed, could not have been ad- 
duced as a token or confirmation of the covenant between 
God and man. But the very fact that a covenant, and 
a token of that covenant were necessar}^ to allay the 
fears of Xoah and his posterity in reference to a flood, 
when they should see water falHng from the heavens — 
what by supposition had never taken place before the 
flood — is, of itself, a very strong presumptive proof that 
it never rainrd before the flood. Association or sug- 
gestion being one of the strongest principles of the hu- 
man mind, Noah and liis family v/ould almost certainly 
ever afterwards associate or connect i\-\Q falhng of water 
from the heavens — which was now to be the order of na- 
ture — vrith its consequences — a flood — r.s first witnessed 
by them; and hence the covenant of God, confirmed by 
the rainbow which v/as often to appear in the new cecon- 
omy Oi nature, to remind them of the promise o^ God, 
Ihat **the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy 
all flesh." 

From all r/hich considerations, I am fully satisfied ia 
my own mind that the earth was once surroundi^d by a 
fluid ring, similar to that which now surrounds the plan- 
et Saturn, and that it was the precipitation of this water 
upon the earth that caused the deluge. Astronomy 
teaches the possibility of such an appendage to our 
planet; arguments drawn from tlie Bible account of the 



i 157 ] 

flood, and from otherwise unexplained phenomena in the 
physical relations of the earth, suggest its probability, 
and Moses and Peter, if I have rightly interpreted them, 
teach the certainty of such a state of things in the past 
history of our planet. 

Whether,^ reasoning from analogy, we are to conclude 
that the planet Saturn is destined to undergo such a flood 
as our earth has undergone, depends, of course, on the 
question, whether its inhabitants have ever, or will have 
apostatized and become desperately wicked. Such a 
catastrophe may await them: as the conflagration of other 
worlds — evidenced by new starsff which have suddenly 
appeared in our heavens very brilliant for a while and 
then have disappeared — throws light upon and foreto- 
kens that flood of fire which our planet is destined ulti- 
mately to undergo. 

All Nature, whether in our own clepartmant of the 
Universe, or elsewhere, is but a reservoir of means in the 
hand of God for promoting the happine'ss and well-being 
of his creatures if obedient —or lor their punishment — -' 
and even destruction, if finally impenitent — should they 
transgress the laws which, for their own good, He has 
placed them under. God is *'glorious in holiness, fear-^ 
ful in praises, doing wonders!" 



ffLa Place says in reference to this subject: *'As to those 
stars "which suddenly shine forth with a very vivid light and 
then vanish, it may be supposed with probability that great 
conflagrations, occasioned by extraordinary causes, take place ou 
their surfaces, and this supposition is confirmed by the ehange 
of color analogous to that which is presented to us on earth 
by bodies which are coasuracd by ^r a.''— System of the World, 
vol. 1 page 101. 



T 15B ] 
GALVANISM AND ELECTRICITY. 

If, in a Galvanic battery, *'a number of plates is to in- 
crease the infeiisity, and noC the gz^.7.>z///i/, of electricity," 
coald not the common Electrical Machine be connected 
with the simple Galvanic circle to give the desired ten- 
sion? Very large plates v/ould supply quantity and 
a powerful-Electrical Machine would add intensity to the 
circuit; and thus a compound apparatus of very great 
power for chemical decomposition and analysis might be 
constructed. *• Chemical decomposition depends on 
quantity and intensity together;" and it is immaterial, I 
presume, ho¥/ this intensity is brought about — whether 
by increasing the number of plates in the Galvanic bat- 
tery, or by its connection with a powerful Electrical Ma- 
chine, should the combination be practicable. 

February 20th, 1849. 



A PROHIBITORY LIQUOR LAW. 

The State of Maine is justly entitled to the honor of 
beincT^ the first among niodern States to enact a prohibi- 
tory liquor lavv. The classical scholar, however, will 
call to mind that some of the ancient tribes— the Nervii 
and the Suevi-- -described in Caesar's Commentaries, had 
adopted the same regulation;"^* and the reasons assigned 

***Nihil pati vinr, rcliquarumque rerara ad luxuriain perii 
uentiutn, iiiferri, quod liis rebus relanguciCare aniraes et remitli 
virtutem esistimarent.'' DeBell' Gall. lib. 2, c 15. "Yiuum al 
se oniiino iraportari iioii siuiint, quod ea re ad laborcm feiea- 
diiin remoll?scere homines atque cffa?miuari, arbitraiitur." id 
lib. i, c 2. 



I 159 ] 

by them as reported by Csesar, for such a prohibition-- - 
that by sucli things their spirit and courage were relaxed 
and weakened, and that men were rendered effeminate 
•nd less able to under^jo labor---should still be urcred 
by those advocating such a policy among us, as well a^s 
the arguments drawn from the moral aspects of the 
question. The principles of the temperance reformation 
commend themselves to every lover of his race and 
country: and the tears of heart-broken widows and beg- 
gared orphans plead with an eloquence which language is 
incapable of expressing for the enactment of a Prohib- 
itory Liquor Law in Kentucky. 

It is worthy of remark that Caesar declined an en- 
gagement with those cold water boT/s, when informed that 
tii-ey were awaiting his arrival ready far a contest. (Caes 
Com. Do Bello Gall. lib. IV c 19.) Some, in our times, 
might prO'lIt by following the example of Caesar. 



ASTRONOMY. 

Astronomy points to ti.e briglitest page in the great 
volume of Nature laid open for our instruction. Here 
the contemplative mind sees shadov/ed forth in the im- 
mensity of space and the resplendent lights by Tihich 
i:s darkness is illumed, the eternity and adorable perfec- 
tions of God — in the centrifugal and centripetal forces by 
which its mechanism is regulated the iree-agency of 
inan and the influence of the Spirit of God on the mor- 
al susceptibilities of mind; and hears in the music of 
the spheres but the echo, still reverberating* of that 
general Anthem which, at the creation, **the morning 



[ 160 ] 

stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for 

184o. 



LIGBT. 

As shadows show that there is ligit — 

The lesser types tlie greater — 
So light, God's shadow, to our sight 

Adumbrates a Creator. 

Of all things, light is the fittest emblem of God; and 
this is true in whatever relation we contemplate it. — 
Without natural light, matter is essentially— what the 
earth was before the Spirit ot God moved upon the face 
of the waters — ^'aora!os,'^ * 'invisible;'' without God, if 
spirit conld exist, it would be equally ' 'invisible by its 
own nature." But in a still closer sense is light an em- 
blem of Divinity. Light is the source of the colors that 
beautify our world; and although the hues and tints of 
the material world appear of endless variety, yet they 
are ail resolvable into three rays of color — red, yellow, 
and blue — composing one ray of light: and whatever of 
beauty the blushing rose or mantling cheek may dis- 
close, the beauty of color exists only in the light through 
which we see it. Thus in the spirit world, all the at- 
tributes in which spirits, whether angelic or human, are 
clothed, are but emenations from that inexaustible source 
of life and light, the Triune God; and whatever ot mor- 
al beauty or comeliness either v»'e or angels may display, 
it is all, but the divine attributes which we and they re- 
flect more or less perfectly: the beauty or comeliness is 
not in us or them, but in that better moral light which 
the creature rellects. ^'Not to us, O Lord, not lo ii«, but 



i 



[ 161 ] 

to thy name give glory." This view should at least 
teach us humility ---and often the humble flower reflects 
in more beautiful combination the delicate tints of re- 
fracted light than the gorgeous rainbow displayed in the 
heavens above us. 

But light, heat and electricity are intimately associa- 
ted: they are doubtless one and the same all-pervading 
element, manifesting itself to human observation in three 
distinct phases, thus again mirroring forth to our dim 
vision the triunity of God. 

'^But I lose 

Myself in Him, in Light ineffablel 

Come, then expressive silence, muse His praise." 



CONTENTS 



Page. 

Preface, - • 3 

POETRY— 

The Harp of David, 5 

To a Young Lady, 6 

Man shall not live by bread alone, - - - - 6 

The pious !N"egro's Soliloquy, . - . - _ 7 

The Christian's Soliloquy, 8 

In Memory of Dr. Best, 10 

To Miss A. F. B., ' 11 

Parody on Burns, -.-.»-. 12 

On the death of a Young Lady, 13 

To Miss E. A. M., 14 

Prayer, 15 

Written in an Album, - - - -- - -16 

Seek not the Bowl, 17 

Beware of Strong Drink. - 17 

Repentance, . 18 

A Mother's Love, - - 19 

Death, .19 

Soliloquy, . 20 

The right motive in writing, 21 

''Childhood," - 22 

Reply— To , - - - - - - - 23 

Mr. Clay's Bust, 24 

The Country School, 25 

The Sepulchral Mounds, 28 

Himalaya, 28 

The Christian, 30 

In memoiy of Dr. Bodley, 33 

To a Little Girl, 34 

True Love, 35 

Of a Young Lady, 36 

The Temple of Vesta, - 37 

Woman's Smile, -------- 38 

To a Young Lady, ---..__ 33 

Written in an Album, - - 39 



1 104 ] 

"Things I love/' 39 

Reply to "Western Bard/' 40 

Rural Felicity, 43 

The Second Concert, 44 

In memory of Amanda F., 45 

Lines, - - - 46 

The Harp, 47 

The Battle Field, " 'J^ 

In memory of Emma Best, • ^1 

Fight Thoughts, - - 52 

Cincinnati Observatory, 56 

Carrier's Address Lexington Atlas, . . - - 60 

The Pestilence, - - 64 

La Pentecoste, 66 

Pentecost: translation, '''A 

The Artist, - - - - 77 

In memory of Frances Geretta, "^^ 

In memory of Rachel, '''^ 

Tomy son, R. B. H., 80 

Dedication Baptist Church, - - _ - - - - 82 

In memory of iMary Ann, ..---- 83 

A Tear, - " " " ot 

To my son, J. D. H., - - - - : - - " ^^ 

The Stream of Intemperance, 86 

Forgiveness, 87 

Light, 87 

The Widow, 88 

Fourth of July: Pic-Xic celebration, . - - - 89 

The Reward of Labor, - " ot 

Acrostic, " QK 

Baptism, ' " qr 

Circular Letter, ' im 

In memory of Joel Hickman, _ . . - - lUl 

Outlines, |X- 

Gems of Thought, ]^i^ 

The;italian and English, - - - v ' in« 

The Lexington Fair, --■'-"" inn 

Types, ... - l^jy 

Carrier's Address Observer & Reporter, - - " iJiJ 

To .----'--" \^ 

An Election Song, - - • - ' " i I'd 

The English Language. - - - - - - H^ 



[ 166 ] 

Parody on Campbell, * 115 

Sing nsoneof tae SoDgs of Zioii; . - . . hq 

Phaganthropv, - . - 117 

The Crisis, " - 119 

War, 126 

My Birth-Day, 127 

ToSallv, 128 

To Sally, 129 

To Safah, 130 

''To Edwin," 131 

Postscript, - -> 132 

Mv only Hope. • - 134 

PROSE— 

Loye-Sick Poetry, - - - - * 139 

Kentucky ''Land of Song,*' - - - - 142 

Silk Culture, 143 

Popular Education, ----- 144 

Uniyersalism — The Philology of the Question, - 146 

Precession of the Equinoxes and Obliquity of the 

Ecliptic, 147 

The Earth once surr-unded by a Ring, - - 151 

Galvanism and Electricity, - - - . 158 

A Prohibitory Liquor Law, .... 158 

Astronomy, - - - - - - 159 

Light, - ^ 16a 



CORRIGENDA. 

Having been compelled, by the press of other engagements, 
to read the proof-sheets of these Scraps through the rost-Office, 
I find some typographical errors have escaped the printer's and 
my own observation, which the reader is requested to correct, as 
follows: 



Page. 


Line, 


For 


Read 


3 


last 


is 


if 


10 




October, 


September. 


17 


12 


Lethsen, 


Lethean. 


30 [Note] 




Sphiggor, 


Sphiggoo . 


46 


2 


vv rough. 


wrought. 


80 


7 


see. 


she. 


123 


5 


giver, 


give. 


124 


28 


Rachael, 


Rachel. 


132 


11 


Parasceve,* 


Sabbath-eve. 


144 


17 


alies 


aliis. 


148 


12 


After easily 


, insert, in a liqht 






meridional circle — which cirt 






cle is itself to turn easily. 


148 


1 


tute 


ture 


149 


1 


deminished. 


diminished. 


150 


4 


eliptic, 


ecliptic. 


150 


7 


crntinue, 


continue. 


151 


6 


opinions, 


opinion. 


152 


27 


After "relations," insert to 






one and 


the same body of 






water. 




154 


5 


ctystalline, 


crystallyne. 


155. Note." 


—Add the 


following extract from Turner 


Chemistry: 








**It is singular 


that, although oxygen, as a constituent of tJie 


atmosphere, is necessary to r 


espiration; m a state of purity it is 



^Parasceve is, correctly, a word of four syllables; but I ven- 
tured to use it to rhyme with "believe" from the tendency of 
such words to adopt an English pronunciation, and also because 
Sabbath-eve, to some,' suggests the evening of the Sabbath day, 
and not, as the word imports, the day before the Sabbath. 



[ 168 ] 

deleterious. When an auimal, as a rabbit, for example, breathes 
pure oxygen gas, no inconvenience is at first perceived; but after 
the interval of an hour or more, the circulation and respiration 
become very rapid, and the system in general is highly excited. 
Symptoms of debility subsequently ensue, followed by insensi- 
bility; and death occurs in six, ten, or twelve hours." 

158 Note pertiuentum, pertinenti.um. 

160 25 emenations. emanations. 



ADDENDA. 



THE EARTH ONCE SURROUNDED BY A RING : 

A ySW THEORY OF THE FLOOD ADDITIONAL REMARKS. 

If, in the language of Dr. Hitchcock. **it is reason- 
able to expect, only that the principles of science, right- 
ly understood, should not contradict the statements of 
revelation, rightly interpreted ; unexpected coinciden- 
ces'' occurring between them **will tend to strengthen 
our belief in the truth of both.'' If, in the New Theo- 
ry of the Flood which I have published, I have rightly 
interpreted the statements of revelation, in Gen. 1: 6, 
7, and 2d Pet. 3: 5, 6, such an ^'unexpected coinci- 
dence" does occur between revelation and geology, as 
any one can see who will attentively read my article 
whh the above caption, and the following extract from 
Dr. Hitchcock's ^'Putline of the Geology of the Globe," 
p. 23, which I have m^t with since that article was 
first published : '*The fossils in the recent tertiary stra- 
ta between the tropics do not correspond to those now 
living there. Hence, since that period there has been a 
to.tal change of climate all over the globe." My theorv 
also harmonizes with the opinion of Dr. Ure, *nhat the 
heating surface or dry land of the the earth was twice 
as extensive before the deluge as it is now :" -st * ^ 
''thati the facts and observations just stated seem ade- 
quate to prove that the events of the deluge involved 
such a change in the terrestrial constiiulion as rendered 
the surface of the globe much colder and moister than 
1 



it had previously been/' (Geology, p. 491.) The 
theory I have proposed also comports with the opinion 
of Dr. Comstock, **that the climate of Siberia was once 
similar to that of the tropics of tke present day* ; that at 
the epoch of the deltige, the climate of Siberia suffered 
a sudden and material change in its temperature, and 
that it then became similar to what it is now;" and it 
accounts more satisfactorily for '*this sudden change in 
the climate of Siberia and of the decrease of the su- 
perficial temperature of the earth generally" thsln tbe 
cause assigned by Dr. Comstock in **the cold produ- 
ced by the evaporation of the waters of the deluge" — 
which, according to the old views on the subject, could 
not have been very great ; but according to my theory, 
it would be adequate to account for a very great reduc- 
tion in the temperature of the surface of the earth. If 
it rained before the flood, and the flood was producied 
by water raised from the earth's surface, that water 
would have had a common temperature with the earth 
itself, and would have, in the lapse of ages before the 
flood, fallen often upon its surface in the form of rain^ 
gradually reducing its temperature ; but, if we sup- 
pose the water, or a fluid somewhat denser than water, 
to have once surrounded the earth, **above the firma- 
ment," as in the system of the planet Saturn — which 
of course must have had a very low temperature, per- 
haps more than 100® below zero ; — I say, if we sup- 
pose this water or fluid to have been precipitated up- 
on the earth and to have caused the deluge, we have a 
condition of things which will well account for the very 
great reduction of temperature which Dr. Comstock 
supposes to have taken place in the earth's surface at 
the time of the Noachian deluge, to say nothing of the 
effect which tbe breaking up of such a system would 
have upon the earth gonerallr in the ring's no longer 



warding off the direct rays of the Sun from the inter- 
tropical regions, nor reflecting its Irghtand heat, as fot* 
merly, into the ctrcumpolar portions of tKe earth's sur- 
face. 

I understand 'Uks great deep^^ spoken of in Gen. 7: 
'll — in the Septuagint abussos, abyss, *' bottomless," — 
to refer to this *' water above the firmament" — the up- 
per deep — which was literally ''bottomless," and not to 
the ocean as generally supposed. (The Septuagint has 
Katarkraktai, '^cataracts," *'water-falls," or "flood- 
gates" instead of **windows," of Heaven in the sam« 
yerbe, also favoring the interpretation and application 
1 have given to the passage.) 

The latter part of the second and first part of the 
third verse of the 104th Psalm (also 6th verse), I under- 
stand to refer to this original constitution of the earth, 
the reference being plainer in the Septuagint than the 
English version: '^ekteinooii ton our anon hoosei derhrin, 
3 ho stegazoon en hudasi ta huperooa autou^' — (where I 
understand aw^oz^ to refer to owranow, and that word to be 
used in a restricted sense as it evidently is in 2d Peter, 
3, 5, and Rev. 21, 1.) The New ;Theory also obviates 
this difficulty which necessarily presents itself without 
it, that if the water causing the deluge was raised from 
the ocean to descend as rain, as in the present oecono- 
my of nature, the ocean would have been minus that 
amount of water necessary to cover the earth and its 
mountains, and would have been consequently that 
much lower or below the general level of the earth than 
before, and although it might have rained for forty 
days and flooded the earth sufficiently to drown every 
thing upon its surface, it would have still, by the law of 
the equilibrium of fluids, have flowed back to the ocean 
in a much shorter time than given in the Bible, unless 



we suppose the bottom of the ocean to have been up- 
heaved during the continuance of the deluge and to 
have subsided as it went off — which would have ren- 
dered the rain for forty days unnecessary. 

If the interior of the earth be, [as some geologists 
suppose in a state of igneous fusion, and the surface of 
the earth but a very thin crust resting upon this fhiid 
mass within, the increased pressure of the water which 
1 suppose to have been precipitated from **above the 
firmament" upon this crust if of unequal strength at 
different points, would have caused an upheaving from 
beneath* in the elevation of mountains, in the caverns 
of which much of the water causing the deluge may have 
been disposed of, leaving, however, a still greater por- 
tion on its surface (or at least leaving the water over a 
greater extent of surface, as supposed by Dr. Ure,) than 
before the deluge. 

So much as to the past relations of our globe ; and 
according to Dr. Hitchcock, "the facts of geology ren- 
der the future destruction of the earth by fiie not an 
improbable event:" so that both nature and revelation 
join in teaching us that God has changed the order 
and oeconomy of nature and that he loill change them 
again — as a vesture he will ^'change them and they 
shall be changed." (Ps. 102, 26.) Our philosophy 
takes cognizance of nature as it is. We know perhaps 
as little of what was the ceconomy of nature before '*the 
foustains of the great deep were broken up'^ — when the 
earth stood **out of the water and in the water" — as we 
know what will be the oeconomy of nature, after **the 
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the ele- 
ments shall melt with fervent heat" in that **new heaven 
and new earth," when there is to be *'no more sea.^' 
(Rev. 21. 1.) We only know that the world is in the 



hands of the great Architect, and that He has done and 
will do with it as seemeth good in his sight : it is a 
great kaleidoscope in which we view the beautiful ar- 
rangements exhibited in its present position and can 
form no conception, except so far as the statements of 
revelation teach us, either as to what was the view in 
a former position or what will be the new arrangement 
effected by another change in the position of the instru- 
ment. W e only know that as all that God does is 
grand beyond conception, our world will still be denomi- 
nated Kosmos, '^order" — that 'wise adaptation of means 
to ends, that symmetrical arrangements of all the parts in 
the grand whole by which the kaleidoscope of nature 
displays the wisdom and goodness of God as seen in all 
his works. These views are presented only as a theo- 
ry , not as the certain teachings of inspiration ; and of 
course, it is not claimed that they obviate every difficul- 
ty or are liable to no objection ; but it is believed the 
i^ew Theory obviates more difficulties than it creates, 
and best harmonizes with "the statements of revelation 
rightly interpreted^' and the facts of ''science rightly 
understood;" so that what is not incompatible with 
astronomy, geology, and chemistry, on the one hand, 
and revelation, on the other, may, in the absence of a 
better theory, be fairly presumed to be true. 

* Dr. Hitchcock says of the the ''Northern Regions generally" 
[Outline, p. 26.] "During the period of the coal formation, these 
regions were covered by plants of a tropical character, although 
now pei-petual ice occupies the surface; and the change of cli- 
mate appears to have taken place at the time when the subter- 
ranean lavas first found numerous orifices to the surface," 



SI^N;— ITS CURE— FIERY TRIAL, 

The luckless bird that flits the air. 

May light upon our head to rest, 
Bui must not in our tangled hair 

Be suffered, to construct its nest:. 
Thus sin may flit into the mind 

And go, so unapproved, and leave 
No stain, to eye of God, behind, 

Although it cause that iwind to grieve. 
If fear of sinning even in thought—^ 

For in the thought aU, sm begins — 
Hath much distress on many brought. 

What must the consciousness of sins 
Deliberately by heart conceived 

And acted out against the light 
Of consqience — when the Spirit, grieved. 

Has taken his everlasting flight. 
No more with rising beam to cheer 

The dark recesses ©f the Soul — 
Which,' now no more restrained by fear, 

Is given up to lust's control; 
I say, what must the anguish be 

Of such a soul when it awakes 
From its supposed security — 

When Conscience as tormentor takes 
The form and office of *'the worm 

Thq^t dies not/^,3. most loathsome thing., 
Misshapen, horrid, yet inerm, 

Save that it hath one bearded sting 
Which, like the Moor's envenomed dart 

Still sticking in the fallen corse, 
Doth stick and rankle in the heart — - 

It is the sting of fell remorse. 



Whoe'er thou art by Conscience stung, 

Like Isiaelite in wilderness, 
Who looked on brazen serpent hung 

On pole and lived — in your distress, 
If yet one lingering wish remain 

To live a better life — to reach 
The Land of Promise — to attain 

That better Canaan, I beseech 
You look on Hinn on Calvary — 

Like Israelite, 't is look and live! 
He bled for you, He bled for me; 

He can, if asked, our sins forgive. 
He suffered, that we might not feel 

The pangs of even a sinful thought; 
He bled, that He with blood might heal 

The ravages which Sin has wrought. 



There are with some minds certain tAmes- 

Such are too highly sensitive — 
When not the consciousness of crimes, 

But idle tales much trouble give; 
Especially when circumstance— 

Oft justice blind-fold seems Iq. move — 
To false report gives countenance, 

And one cannot the charge disprove; 
When even his very innocenpf 

The semblance of his guilt assumes, 
And, like the One without offense. 

His heart to bleed for others'dpoms. 
O thou who art thus strangely saared. 

The time of your deliverance bide; 
(jrod doth his suffering saints still guard; 

He will the doubtful point decide. 



8 

And vindicate your bumble name: 
True worth, like gold in furnace itied, 

The hotter burns the trial flame, 
Is but more fully purified. 



TO MRS. E. A. W. B. 

In acknowledgment of a present of some of her Paintings, 

Your form is not as airy, 

Nor step so quick and light. 
As when at first, like fairy, 

You burst upon my sight ; — 
The duties of the mother 

A gravity impart ; 
They call forth, never smother, 

The feelings of the heart ; — 
But still, in path of duty, 

As erst in maiden prime — 
That better form of beauty — 

You tread with step sublime : 
Nor is your cheek as ruddy — 

The rose with lily twined — 
But yet has deeper study 

Given color to your mind : 
And still your heart's blood gushes 

With full Vermillion tide ; 
Your cheek still softly blushes 

As it did in maiden pride, 
The index of true feehng — 

'T is thus the passions speak ; — 
But I find your canvas stealing 

The roses from your cheek. 



As cheek from thought grows whiter 

Of those who J)aint or print, 
The abler grows the writer, 

The softer glows the tint. 
The pen or softer pencil, 

As we Hi ay paint or write, 
Is but the mina's utensil 

To bring our thoughts to light. 
Your art is more inviting ; 

The eye is sooner caught 
By painting, than by writing 

To catch the fleeting thought. 
Your Paintings are a treasure — 

With light the canvas glows ; 
But very i'ew find pleasure 

In "Poetry and Frose,'^ 
Then, for these sj)lendid pieces— = 

As if engraved on steel — 
My heart until it ceases 

To beat will grateful feel. 
November 11th, 1854. 



TO THE SAME, 



On being told ly her that I was regarded hj the world as 
cold and unsociable, 

A heart impulsive, warm, 

And generous to excess. 
Disgusted with mere form. 
Its feelings doth repress ; 
But when with kindred souls it meets, 
That heart with theirs 3-e»ponsive beats. 



10 

The world may call me cold — 

Cold it has been to me : 
But, cast in nature's mould 
Whatever that form mai^ h \ 
My heart retains its pristine ^'. 
And is, with nature's fires. >t- . Arm. 
Such is my heart, my fri^ n 

The world may call rr> ; 

But till my life shall end, 
Young, middle-aged, 
My heart will beat to frien ue- — 

S\ich friendship as I feel f 
Such friendship is for lif 
Man may not disunift 
Like husband and like v 
Their sacred faith su' 
That whatsoe'er is right t ), 

And be to one another tf 
^T is friendship such as un^. 

The alchemy of love 
Transmutes to that pn 
Akin to that above 
Which hearts betrothed,. -..^ .'.^.,. ^^njoy- 
Earth's only bhss without alloy. 
Noyember 12th, 1854. 



WRITTEN IN ALBUM, 

The beauty of the cht> 

Ts like a fragile flov. 
Which blooms perhaps 

But may fade within ■x^^^^^^u.y^; 



XI 



The beauty of the min: , 

In brighter tints arra v ed — 
For brighter sphere designed — 

Blooms not, like ch^ek, t© fade.: 
Thea, be this beautv oiirs 

^V^hich, of perpeiui^i bloom, 
Adorns life's sunny r : ers 

And blossoms ro jl he tomb. 

December, 1854. 



€^0D 



OVE." 



G reat beyond thougV 
O f Deity ; but that 
D ivinity attractive ii. 



dl the attribute^ 

constitutes 

yes 



I 8 love : love brought- ^ Savior from the skiiQ^^ 
S trong to redeem, aJiKough that Savior dies : 



L ife bursts the tomb 

O Death, where is y 

V ictorious, the Lo{ ; irns on high 

E ternal life to give us wben we die. 



tmanuel aame to save : 
mo! your boast, grave! 



THERE 

Where shall 
Like Noii! 

Rest from it^ 
But in its r 



T IN HEATEN. 

less mind, 
ent dove, 
^^ rings jBnd, 
above? 



12 

Below, no rest is found, 

Nor olive branch to tell 
Where, in this lower ground, 

The weary soul may dwell. 
The waters still prevail 

Which as ,a deluge sweep; 
Grief's tear-drops never fail, 

Those fountains of the deep : 
The stream that slakes our thirst. 

The wine, man's heart that cheers, 
The ocean, fresh at first, 

Have ail been human tears. 
Back to its home above. 

When all that 's mortal dies, 
Like Noah's weary dove. 

The ransomed spii'it flies. 
December 15tb, 1854. 



-♦%-«6- 



NEW-YEAR'S ADDRESS, 
Of the Carrier of the Kentuclcy New Era ; 

ON THE FIRST DAY OF JANUARY, 1 855. 

'*Am I my brother's keeper?'' answered Cain, 
In reference to his brother he had slain; 
*'Am I my brother's keeper?" still replies } 

The voice of all to question from the skies > 

When any whom we might have rescued, dies. ) 

"Where is your brother?" still God's voi<5e demands, 
Not only touching him whom murderous hands 
Have slain, like Cain, but him whom we might eaVe, 
Would we, like "good Samaritan," behave. 



13 

Maa is a soeial being; all possess 

Some power for good or evil, more or less; 

Man is a social being; customs link ) 

Mankind together, so that e'en a wink > 

May set in motion thousands; but to drink ) 

Together so intoxicates the brain. 

That millions have, in consequence, been slain. 

Man is a social being; let us, then, 

Concei*t together, as becometh men, 

To banish from society that bane 

To social happiness, till all refrain 

From drinking spirits — for the good of all — ) 
While stands the world, like good Apostle Paul,[- 
To eat no meat, if thus a brother fall. \ 

T^e State, as agent of the public will, 

Has sacred obligations to fulfil; 

Is bound alike to find out and sup^res^ 

Whatever tends to damage and distress 

The common weal; to foster and educe 

AVhatever tends to, public good or use. 

Sometimes, in execution of its trust, 

It says to this, you may, to that, you must; 

This good to foster, and that vice supplant. 

The law says here, you shqll, but there you shu'iit. 

The commoji weal requires that we abate 

Whatever nuisance damages the State; 

And nuisances offensive to the smell 

Or eye of those who in a city dwell. 

Are less the subject of the law's control. 

Than such as kill the body and the soul. 

If law may say a freeman shall not sell 

His votd — however incredible to tell-^ 

Though pressed by penury, for needful gain, 

May law not, far more properly, restrain 



14 

A man from selling that which fires the brain ) 

Aii'd Jblunts the conscience till, far worse than Cain,> 
The drunkard has his wife and children slain? } 

We ask no law to violate the rites 
Of social life; if any one invites 
His friends to see him , let them freely use 
Su'ch drinks and viands as his guests may choose; — 
Within the precincts of domestic life. 
We would invoke the aid of ev'ry wife 
And daughter, more potential than all laws. 
In advocacy of our sacred cause; — 
But we do ask a law to interdict. 
By penalties severe, and police strict. 
Alike the manufacture and the sale 
Of Alcohol — or brandy, whisky, ale. 
Or any other drink that may contain 
The spirit alcohol — from fruit or grain; 
jE^cept in med'cine and the arts allied, 
-Or wine to sacramental use applied. 
Grain is man's food: let no man, then, conrert 
That sacred boon to alcohol, to hurt 
The nervous tissues of his mortal frame, 
And, through their stimulation, to inflame 
The baser feelings of the mind and heart, 
That central organ, and more vital part. 
Until the man is transformed to the brute, 
Of ev'ry noble impulse destitute. 

Ye Sons of Temperance, a noble band. 
Against the sale of liquor take your stand; 
Gird on your armor, ready for the fight, 
And battle in this cause with all your might. 
Let politicians, as their trade is, prate 
About their willinfjness to serve the State — 



vail, ) 
lil, I 
avail, ) 



15 

Their partv scliemes which must, forsooth, prevail, 

Or government, in consequence, must fail; 

But, as for you, "Know Nothing" but the cause 

Of Temperance, until secured by laws 

Prohibiting the making and the sale 

Of Alcoholic drinks: — You must prevail, 

If Truth retains her prowess to assail, 

Or prayers of God's elect can aught avail, 

O woman, like the Mother of us all. 
In Para(iise, before her primal fall. 
Beneath the Tree of Knowledge thou dost staod, 
To pluck its fruit with ever eager hand- 
Too rash, at first, to pluck the fruit forbid. 
But seeking since to undo what it did: 

Thou, at the cradle of our being, dost. 
In execution of thy sacred trust — 
Before the wily Serpent has entwined 
Itself around the fruit-trees of the mind — 
Suggest the timely warning, and instil 
The love of virtue, that the guarded will 
Responsible, because to act left free, 
No more may touch the interdicted Tree 
Of Knowledo-e, good and evil; only good 
Thy motto now, the tempter's wiles withstood. 
Thus, thou dost, as the mother of mankind, 
Impress thy image on the public mind — 
Decide what laws and customs shall prevail, 
And all the Social rites in their detail. 
Man may make laws, but, in the social hall. 
Thou canst unmake or^nuUify'^them all: 
Thourulest in the social world supreme. 
And canst the State from drunkenness redeem,. 
Decide the issue of the present strife 
And banish alcohol from social life; 



16 



Exert thy power, thou meBsenger of grace^ 
Redeem the State and save a ruined race. 



A * # • • 



INDEX TO ADDENDA : 

PAGE. 

Earth once surrounded by a Ring, - - , i 

Sin — its cure, ---.-. 5 

To Mrs. E. A. W. B., - .... 8 

To same. ------- o 

Written in an Album, - - - - - 10 

God is Love, - - - - - . n 

There 's Rest in Heaven, - - - - - 1 1 

New Year's Address New Era, - - - 12 



^^Pagft 85, read 18th and 19th hnes after 21st line. 



APPENDIX. 



THE EARTH 0:N"CE SURROUNDED BY A RING: A 
NEW THEORY OF THE FLOOD— FURTHER RE- 
MARKS. 

Since the publication of the foregoing Scraps, a friend has 
kindly procured for mv perusal from the Lexington Library, 
''The Sacred Theory of the Earth,'' by Thomas Burnet, (sixth 
edition, London, 1726.) The high standing of the author and 
the impression made by the publication of this work may be in- 
ferred from the following extract from the complimentary lines 
addressed to the Author by Addison (e Coll, Mag. Oxon. 
16^9:) 

"Dum veritatem quaerere pertinax 

Ignota pandis, solicitus parum 
Utcunque stet commune vulgi 

Arbitrium et popularis error;" 

"Resolved great hidden truths to trace, 

Each learned fable you despise, 
And, pleased, enjoy the famed disgrace 

To think and reason, singly wise: 
Each tale reject by time allowed 
And nobly leave the erring crowd." 

From this work I learn (vol. 1, page 22,) that '^the water 
above the firmament" (Genesis, I: 6, 7,) had been suggested 
by some, (Burnet does not say who,) as the source whence the 
water was derived for the production of the Flood, although 1 
was not aware that such an idea had ever occurred to any one 
imtil it occiirred to my own mind in 1836, in reading Genesis; 
and it was afterwards corroborated by 2d Pet. 3: 5, 6, and by 
2 



analogies drawn from the planet Saturn. Burnet had, however, 
long before, though unknown to me, declared this idea as *4ma- 
ginary" and "extrayagant,'' and disposed of it by the following 
argument: "The heavens above where these waters lay, [lie] 
are either solid or fluid: if solid, how could the waters get 
through them to descond upon the earth? If fluid, as the air 
or sether, how could the waters rest upon tliem, for water is 
heavier than air or aether?" That argument may have been 
considered good in the seventeenth century, but it will hardly 
be regarded as conclusive in the nineteenth. Even St. Augus- 
tine, as quoted by Burnet himself, had suggested the possibility 
of there being 'Svater above the firmament," not by "^a mira- 
cle of omnipotency," but according to "^the nature of things'** 

V^^hile I regard all that is peculiar to Burnet's theory as 'Hma- 
pinary*^ and "extravagant" as he had regarded "the super-ce- 
lestial waters," he has ai-gued much more ably than I have done, 
or claim the ability to do, that "the antediluvian heavens and 
earth were of a different form and constitution -from the present, 
whereby that world was obnoxious to a deluge of water, as the 
present is to a deluge of fire," (p. 223,) according to St. Peter, 
(2d Epis. 3: 5, 6:) wiio compares the conflagration with tlie 
deluge as two general dissolutions of nature,^^ (p. 35:) that ^'thc 
rainbow was not seen nor known before the Flood," (page 
322, &c.,) that "'there was no rain from the beginning of the 
world till the deluge;" that "the Deluge «mme not to pass, as 
was vulgarly believed by an excess of rain*, or any inundation 
of the sea" (p. 209;) and that "the sea connot be understood by 
the great abyss w^hose disruption was the cause of the Deluge.'' 
(p. 110.) Burnet and myself agree in the above positions 
w^hich are common to his theory and mine; but we diff'er, toio 
coelo, in their application, or as to the natural causes that pro- 
duced the Deluge. 

I know some regard such discussions as ^the present as, to say 



*"We are not to refute those persons by sapng, that accord- 
ing to the omnipotence of God. to whom all things are possible, 
we ought to believe there are waters there, as heavy as we know 
and feel them here below; for our business is now to inquire, 
according to his Scripture, hoiu God hath constituted the nature of 
ihingsy and not what he could do or work in these things by a 
miracle of omnipotency." 



fne least, unprofitable; but we have the express declaration of 
an Apostle, that all Scripture, given by inspiration of God, U 
profitable, (2d Tim. 3; 16:) and although in the language of 
Burnet, **'t is a dangerous thing to engage the authority of 
Scripture in disputes about the natural world in opposition to 
reason, lest time, which brings all things to light, should dis^ 
cover that to be evidently false which we had made Scripture 
to assert;" yet I also agree with him that *4t was never the de- 
sign of Providence to give such partixsular explications of natu- 
ral things as should make us idle, or the use of reason unneces^ 
gary; but on the contrary, by delivering great conclusions to us 
to excite our curiosity and inquisitiveness after the methods by 
which such things were brought to pass: and it may be there is 
no greater trial or instance of natural wisdom than to find out 
the channel in which these great revolutions -of nature which 
we treat on, flow and succeed each other:" and, in these discus- 
sions, I can truly say with him, *'I have no other design than 
to contribute rny endeavors to find out the truth in a subject of 
so great importance and wherein the world hath hitherto had so 
little satisfaction." 

I shall not attempt an extended Review of Burnet's work, but 
shall attempt to show that his theory is inconsistent with the 
principles of Natural Philosophy, as understood and taught at 
the i)resent time. His theory, as expressed by himself is iu 
substance, as follows: '^That there was a primitive earth of 
another form from the present and inhabited by mankind till the 
Deluge: 'that it had tho&e properties and conditions that we have 
ascribed to it, namely: a perpetual equinox or spring by reason 
of its right srcuation to -the sim; was of an ovul figure, and the 
exterior face of it smooth . -and uniform, without mountains or 
sea; — that the disruption and fall of this earth into the abyss 
which lay under it* was that which made the universal deluge 
and the destruction of the old world." (p. 399.) 



*The principal Scriptural authority "which Burnet gives for 
this idea is Psalm 24: 2: "He hath founded it (the earth) upon 
the seas and established it upon the floods:^' which last expres- 
sion is rendered into the Septuagint ^'epi potamooji/' upon, near 
by or at the rivers. Xenophon uses the same expression (ex- 
cept in the singular) epi potamou, which Donnegan renders 
*^near. or at the river.'* (See Donnegan, epi.) If this render- 



I will not argue the question whether or not, the earth arose 
from a chaos; nor will I say that it is impossible, but only ex-- 
ceedingly improbable, that the heavy materials which compose 
the superficial strata of the earth were deposited as a scum or 
thin layer upon an underlying abyss of waters — the disruption 
of which Burnet contends was the cause of the Deluge, and the 
falling and submersion of the greater portion of wluch left so 
much of the abyss exposed as constitutes our present oceans, 
(see his theory passim:) but I do say that it is impossible that a 
yielding mass, or a mass of matter either wholly or partly 
fluid, subjected to a rotary motion, could maintain, much less 
assume, an oval figure; and this is now so well understood and 
so clearly taught and illustrated by apparatus in our Colleges 
and better Seminaries, that I deem it unnecessary to attempt an 
argimient on the subject This fundamental error is sufficient, 
of itself, to overthrow Burnet's t?heory. And that it is no mis- 
conception of what he means by the oval figure of the earth, it 
is only necessary to turn to vol. 2, page 440, where he says^ 
that, according to his theory, "the sea should be deepest tow- 
ards the poles, which agrees with experience: ***** 
So that if there be an extraordinary depth in the ocean in those 
parts, it confinns our suspicion, that the sea continues still oval:''' 
and ''to speak my mind freely on this occasion, I am inclinable 
to believe, that the earth is still oval or oblong, ^^ (The reverse 
is true, the earth being an oblate spheroid, the equitorial diame- 
ter being greater than the polar by some twenty-six miles.) 
But although Burnet was in error as to the true figure of the 
earth, and consequently his theory which required an oval fig- 
ure of the earth must fall, he deserves the credit of suggesting 
(vol. 2, p. 441 j) one of the means by which the true figure of 
the earth has since been ascertained, viz: '^Whether the degrees 
of latitude are of equal extent in all parts of a meridian.^'* 

ing be correct, the text has no reference whatever to his subter- 
ranean abyss. 

*"The measurement of different degrees has been since per- 
formed many different times in different countries: the general 
fact, that the degrees of the meridian increase as we recede 
from the equator towards the pole is fully confirmed; so that 
the oblateness of the earth in the direction of the polar axis ia 
a truth now placed beyond all controversy." (See Encyclope- 
dia of Geography vol. 1, Figure of the Earth.) 



r5 

We of th^ nineteenth century can scarcely make the proper 
allowance forfthose of the seventeenth in regard to matters of 
science, so great has been the light shed upon these subject? 
since that time. Burnet seems to have been aware of this, 
when he said, "I know our best writings in this life are -but 
essa}/s which Ave leave to posterity to review and correct:" and 
*''t is reasonable to suppose, that there is a Providence in the 
conduct of knowledge as well as of other affairs on the earth; 
and that it was not designed that all the mysteries of nature and 
Providence should be plainly and clearly understood through- 
out all ages of the world; but that there is an order establish- 
ed for this as for other things, and certain periods and seasons:: 
and what was made known to the ancients only by broken con- 
clusions and traditions will be known (in the latter ages of the 
world) in a more perfect w^ay, by principles and theories." 
(Vol. 2, p. 397.) 

As to the perpetual equinox by reason of the- right situation 
'Cf the earth to the sun, we know nothing and can affirm noth- 
ing. Such a position would have given a perpetual Spring to 
some parts of the earth, but a more intolerable Summer to the 
•equator. There is nothing in nature ?fchat I know of to favor the 
idea, that the axis of the earth was ever perpendicular to the 
plane of its oithit.. 

That the primitive earth was without a sea, is contrary to the 
express teaching of the Bible, (Gen. 1: 9, 10;) as also is the 
position, that there were no mountains or high hills. (Gen. 7: 
19.) (I do not myself suppose, that before the flood, the moun- 
tains were either as numerous, or as high, as they are now. See 
Addenda, page 4.) 

It now only remains for us to determine the locality of the 
Abyss spoken of in Genesis, 7: 11, which, if I mistake not will 
be an answer to Burnet's question — '^vhere is the region of the 
super-celestial waters^ 

I agree with Burnet, (vol. 2, p. 370,) that ''the Abyss, or 
Tehom-Rahhali is a Scriptural notion, and that the word is not 
used that I know of, in that distinct sense in heathen authors. 
'T is plain that in Scripture, it is not always taken for the sea, 
(as Gen. 1: 2; 7: 11, &c.,) but to some other mass of waters.-' 

In the cosmogony of Moses, as given in Genesis, we have an 
account of only two bodies of water, the waters "under the 
firmament" and the waters "above the firmament." What wa» 



the form or condition of the waters above the firmament, Moses 
does not inform us; he only says, that they were above the 
firmament; and it is to this water that the Apostle Peter evident- 
ly refers (2d Epis. 3: 5, 6,)* as that w^ter by which the world 
was overflowed and drowned: — which corresponds with Genesis, 
7: 11, where it is said, -'all the fountains of the great deep 
(abyss) were broken up, and the cataracts (or flood-gates), of 
heaven were opened.'^ The word abyss I understand to be ap- 
plicable to any profound, but particularly to the depths of space 
— the ^Hipper deep,^^ (an expression first used, I believe, by the 
late John Quincy Adams.) I believe this idea ^will be found to 
suit all those places in Scripture, particularly. Gen. 1: 2; 7: 
11, &c., where the word deep occurs represented hj ahussos in 
Greek. Burnet says, (vol. 2, p. 430,) ''The flood-gates of 
heaven were opened when the great deep was broken up;'^ 
and I say the same, or rather that the breaking up of the foun- 
tains of the great deep was the opening of the cataracts or 
flood-gates of heaven: and that it was the precipitation of this 
water upon the earth that caused the deluge. Even Burnet 
himself says. (vol. I, p. 132,) ''when the opening of the abyss 
and the flood-gates of heaven are mentioned together, I am apt 
to_think those Jiood- gates were distinct from the common rain and 
■were something more violent and impetuous,'^ This hannonizes 
with my theory but not Avith his: and as he himself says, 
(p. 397,) "in such texts as relate to the natural world, if, of 
two interpretations proposed, one agrees better with the theory 
of nature than the others, coeteris paribus, that ought to be pre- 
ferred." It remains, then, to see whether Burnet's theory or 
mine agrees better with the theory of nature, that is, with the 
fa'cts and principles of Science rightly understood. Burnet 
places his Abyss under the earth, (at what depth he does not 
say,) the primitive habitable globe resting upon it: this super- 
ficial stratum broke, (this he says was the breaking up of the 
abyss;) the greater portion of it fell and exposed so much of the 
waters of the abyss as constitutes our present oceans: the part 
which did not sink, and upon which mankind now live yet rests 



*Adam Clarke pronounces this an "extremely difficult," text, 
and says, "if we translate between the waters, it will bear some 
resemblance to Gen. 1: 6, 7:" which certainly favors my con- 
struction of the text. 



upon this subterranean abyss: whieh he argues himself in these 
words; (vol* 1, p. 171:) '*Asforthe subterraneous waters, see- 
ing the earth fell into the abyss, the pillars and foundations of 
the present (exterior) earth must stand immersed in water, and 
therefore at such a depth from the surface everywhere there must 
be water found, if the soil be of a nature to admit it. 'T is 
true, all subterraneous waters do not proceed from this original; 
for many of them are the effects of rains and melted snows 
sunk into the earth: but that digging anywhere you constantly 
eome to water at length even in the most solid ground, these 
cannot proceed from these rains or snows, but' must come from 
helow, and from a cause as general as the effect is — which can 
.be no other in my opinion than this, that the roots of the exteri- 
or earth stand within the old abyss whereof, as a great part lies 
open in the sea, so the rest lies hid and covered among the frag- 
ments of the earth." (If this be true, why may not this '^exte- 
rior earth" on which we dwell also at some time sink into this 
subterranean abyss and cause another deluge?) Now this whole 
argument of Burnet's is known to be at variance Avithour pres- 
ent philosophy- since no fluid, unimpelled by a force, will rise 
above its fountain head: how then could this water come from, 
below?^' But even if there were no incongruity here with Sci- 
ence rightly understood; if, '4n descending into the earth be- 
neath the point where it is affected by the solar heat, we find 
that the temperature regidarhj and rapidly increases^' (as careful- 
ly conducted observations in various parts of the world clearly 
prove,) "a heat sufficient to boil water would be reached at the 
depth if 5,962 feet or a little more than a mile;"* which inter- 
nal heat of the earth would convert the water of Burnet's 
^'subterranean abyss" into steam which would explode the 
world, as it does -Burnet's theory, to the four winds. But how, 
it may be asked can you better dispose of your abyss? In the 
first place, we have the express declaration of Moses, that there 
was water above the firmament, for he says "lY was so:^^ and 
he says also that at the flood, "all the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up and the cataracts (or flood-gates) of heav- 
en were opened:" (erhrageesan pasai hai peegai tees ahussou^ 
kai hoi katarhrahtai ton ouranou eeneoochtheesan: ) Solomon says 
(Prov. 3: 19, 20,) "the Lord by wisdom hath founded the 



•Hitchcock's Elementary Geology, p. 308, 



earth: by understanding hath he established* the heavens: By 
his knowledge, the depths are \_were'\ broken up and the clouds 
drop down the dew [moisture, water, or rain:] ho Theos tee so- 
phta athemeliose teen geen, heetoimase,* de ouranous phroneesei, 
20. en aistheesei ahussoi erhrageesan, nephee de erhrueesan dro- 
sous:) Now, from the time when ''God made the firmament and 
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament," (Gen. 1: 7,) to the 
time when ''all the fountains of the great deep were broken up 
and the flood-gates of heaven w^ere opened," (Gen. 7: 11,) a 
space of some 1600 years, this water above the firmament exist- 
ed in some form. What that form or condition was, "vve have 
no means of ascertaining except by analogy. It is probable, es-. 
pecially if the theory of La Place be admitted, that all the plan- 
ets of our own solar system are composed of homogeneous ele- 
ments; that hydrogen and oxygen (susceptible, so far as we 
know, of only two combinations with each other, the protoxyd 
(water) and the binoxydf exist upon the other planets as they 
do upon this; and that what exists upon one planet is possible, 
or viay exist, upon another: Now, there is a planet in our solar 
system-, that has a ring around it, or matter of some kind sub- 
sisting "above its firmament:" Since astronomers claim to have 
demonstrated that the ring around Saturn, if "a solid ring 
would soon be destroyed, and that Saturn's ring must therefore. 



*This (Greek) verb has (according to my theory,) a peculiar 
fitness in this connection (see Note from Burnet p. 9:) it signi- 
fies "to prepare; to get ready; to heep' in readiness,^' [for some 
purpose.] The same expression occurs. Pro v. 8, 27. but the 
''^circle (or orb) upon the face of the deep," on which Burnet 
lays so much stress, is not found in the Septuagint in this text, 
(or anywhere else that I know) butt'instead of it, hote aphoorize 
ton heautou thronon ep' anemoon, "when he fixed his throne upon 
the winds." 

flf the specific gravity of the binoxyd of hydrogen were as- 
sumed to be that of this fluid which Professor Pierce describes 
as being "somewhat denser than water," and calculations foun- 
ded upon it should show that it would answer and harmonize 
with the system of Saturn, a very strong presumptive proof 
would be thus afibrded, that itke rings of Saturn are composed 
of that fluid. 



be jluid: it consists, in short, of a stream, or rather of streams, 
of a fluid somewhat denser than water flowing around the plan- 
et:" I say, since this has been established in astronomy, (some 
15 years after I had assumed the fact from analogy;) I think it 
is not so ^4maginary" or "extravagant" as may have been sup- 
posed, that what is around Saturn and above its firmament may 
have beei% once around the earth, viz: a fluid ring; and if this is 
assumed to have been broken up at the Flood, then my interpre- 
tation of Moses and Peter is consistent, and the analogy of na- 
ture rightly understood does not contradict the statement of 
revelation rightly interpreted; especially since Professor Pier-ce 
reasons, that '"Saturn alone of all the planets seems competent 
to preserve a ring when once bestowed:" so that there appears 
a physical reason why the eartli's ring — the fountains of the 
great deep — was broken up and the flood-gates of heaven 
opened; the wonder, so far as the light of nature is reflected on 
the subject, being, how the earth, attended with but one satel- 
lite, could so long ^ 'preserve^' its fluid ring.* 

These are the main features in my Theory, which I throw 
out to be adopted or rejected, as they may be found to harmo- 
nize with nature, when her whole volume shall have been laid 
open and understood; for in the language of Burnet, "we are 
not to suppose, that any truth concerning the natural world, can 
be an enemy to religion; for truth cannot be an enemy to truth — 
God is not divided against himself." 

I know not whether astronomers will countenance the idea, 
that the earth was once surrounded by a fluid ring, similar to 
Saturn's; but until some better hypothesis is proposed for har- 
monizing the statements of Revelation with the facts and prin- 
ciples of Science, I shall rest satisfied in my own mind, that it 
is the true Theory of the Flood. 

[I know it has been attempted to refer the ''dividing of the 
waters from the waters" to the Nebular Hypothesis: "by the 
breaking up of former extensive nebulosities, the waters, or by 



*"It is weakness to think that when a train is laid in nature, 
and methods concerted for the execution of a divine judgment, 
therefore it is not Providential, God is the author and governer 
of the natural world as well as of the moral; and he sees 
through the futuritions of both, and hath so disposed the one as 
to serve him in his just judgments upon the other." BuayEX- 



ro 

ivhat^vcr name the nebulous fluid be designated, 'd;ere divided 
from the waters:, this nebulous fluid, under the firmament or 
within the expansion of each nebula;, was thus divided from that 
^boveor beyond it;" and the gathering together of the waters in- 
to one place, is interpreted to show ''how, throughout the whole 
circle or orbit in which the earth annually revolves around the 
sun, the scattered elements of our globe, under the firmament 
or heaven, 'vvere gathered together into one place, or concen- 
trated into a single globe."* 

I agree with Keith, that ''whenever the theories of philosophers 
are inferences from facts, or the deductions from the known 
laws of nature, they are justly entitled to strict examination 
and high regard, while the vain speculations of imaginative 
theorists are destitute of any claim to the slightest considerar 
tion." In answer to such speculations as above quoted, I will 
subjoin t^e following extracts from Dick's ^'Siderial Heavens:'^ 
"Such conclusions, to say the least, are obviously premature:" 
*'all that we require on this point- is, some more direct and deci- 
sive proofs of the validity of the hypothesis we are now consid- 
ering; and till such proofs be elicited, we are not warranted to 
enter into particular specidations, and to speak with so much 
confidence on the subject as cer-tain theorists have lately done." 
Professor Mitchell, (Siderial Messenger, vol. 2, p. 86,) says, 
in regard to the Great Nebula in Orion, that "its recent resolu- 
tion into stars by Lord Rosse and by Mr. Bond, of Cambridge^ 
Mass.,/(tas shaken the faith of some in the Nebular Theor if of 
IlerscheL''^ From which it would appear that the I^ebular Hy- 
pothesis, is far from being established, and consequently that 
interpretations of Scripture founded upon it, are, to say the 
least, ^-premature.'' I would farther remark, that if the gather- 
ing together of the waters into one place, as mentioned in Gen- 
esis was but another expression for their being "condensed into 
a single globe," Moses made a great mistake in saying, that 
"God called the dry land earth and the collection of waters he 
called seas,'' (not a globe.)] 

The true history of our planet will doubtless some day be 
understood. Isolated facts in the diiferent departments of na- 
ture, like disconnected texts from different portions of revela- 
tion, often seem to contradict one another; and thus is not onl^^ 

*Keith'? Demonstration of Christian Religion, p. 129. 



11 

f 

?iaturc arrayed against nature, and Scripture against Scripture 
But, as might have been expected, these two volumes are fre- 
quently arrayed against each other, but it will ultimately ap- 
pear, when the records of nature shall have been fully explor- 
ed, and both interpreted in the light of the context, that these 
two volumes are the production of the same divine Author, and 
that they illustrate and confirm each other. I have endeavored to 
show, how, according to my Theory of the Flood, these volumes 
harmonize and illustrate each other; but with my very limited 
knowledge of both, I may be in error in supposing a parallelism 
where there is really none. The geological facts to which (in a 
previous paper) I have referred, may not bear the application 
I have given them, but may yet receive a better explication 
from some other hypothesis. Time will decide. I do not re- 
gard it, however, as unphilosophical to assume, that the order 
of nature has been changed, any more than to suppose, that it 
is impossible, that it may be changed again according to the 
express declaration of the Apostle Peter. ThiXtr changes have 
taken place, I think geology clearly shows, the difterent strata 
with their fossil exuviae being so many plates upon which the 
then face of nature was dac/uerreotijped, to be handed down and 
exhibited to after-ages. Although matter exists only as the 
shadow of the divine will, it is probable, that, when once called 
into being, the elements of the material universe will continue 
forever; but it by no means follows, that these elements will 
always remain in the same combination or relation to each oth- 
er: like the differently colored pieces of glass in the Kaleido- 
scope, the^e elements are susceptible, b} a different aggregation, 
of presenting very different phenomena. What is to be the ap- 
pearance of our planet after the conflagration, when there is to 
be ''wo more sea,^^ we know no4^, and it is vain to conjecture; 
that world existing, as yet, only as the exemplar, in the mind of 
the great Artist. But if, in the present ceconomy of Nature, 
**a different arrangement of the same elements may form com- 
pounds very different in their properties;"* or even a single ele- 
ment, carbon, exist wath as dissimilar properties as coal and the 
diamond*, it is but reasonable to suppose that a very different 
world may be formed from the elements which compose the 
present: the w^ater of the ocean may enter into combinatioii. 



See SilHman's Chemistry: Isomerism and allotropism... 



12 

^vith other elements, or be appropriated as the water of crys- 
talization in that great change which this dark globe is to un- 
dergo in the crucible of the final conflagration— from which it 
may come forth as much more resplendent and beautiful than it 
is nowj as the sparkling diamond excels in brilliancy and beau- 
ty the dark carbon from which it was crystalized. But it 
.does not concern us, so much to know either what has been 
the history, or what is to be the destiny, of the Earth; as to 
know what manner of persons ice ought to he in all holy deportment ' 
and godliness, looking for and hasting to the coming of the day ; 
of God — in which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved ^ 
and the elements will melt with fervent heat— that we may be 
found by Him in peace, without spot, and blameless; that, since 
we have here no abiding city, we may be judged worthy to in- 
habit that "new -earth" in which are to dwell the righteous. 
We may rest assured, that the new earth will be adapted to its 
^inhabitants. In the kingdom of nature, as in ;the kingdom of 
grace, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and 
there are differences of administration, but the same Lord; and 
there are diversities of operations, but the same God; whs? 
worketh all in all: 

- Who, when our central sun, 

With its attendant train. 
Its destined course shall run, 

And Night resume her reign, 
Will make the world on o. new plan. 
Adapted to immortal man. 



TEST OF AFFECTION. 



The affection of lovers, when considered in reference to ex-. 
ternal opposition, or to the adversities of life, may be compared 
to the young and thrifty oak which turbulent winds but strength- 
en and cause to strike deeper root; but, between themselves, it: 
is like the rope which the test-trial never strengthens but weak-, 
ens, and, if the tension be either too great, or too long continu: 
fd, breaks. 



13 

"I COME QUICKLY**' 

€hrist it was who spoke ith-* 
]^or will He revoke it — 

*' Surely I come quickly"; 
Even so, Lord^ Jesus, 
Since thy coming frees us 

*rrom bodies both sickly 
And tending to sin: 
But thy grace within 

Can keep us till the hour 
When the dead shall revive, 
And those then alive 

Shall be changed, by thy power. 



Variation: 



From sin: — we are sickly 

In body and spirit, 
And only thy merit 

And wonderful power 
Can arrest the death-doom 
Or snatch from the tomb 

The bodies that worms now devour. 



MAN SHOULD NOT BE A MONK.* 

Not in the cloistered walls 

Where faithless penance prays, 
But out where duty calls. 

Ought man to spend his days: 
Nor should he say his prayers 

By counting senseless beads, 
But, in the world's affairs, 

By doing noble deeds. 



'Monk and Monastic are both deriyed from the Greek Mornn 
ne"— "sole"— "alone." 



14 



'Kot in monastic life — 

It is not good for man 
To be without a wife; 

This is God's better plan:- 
But in the busy scene 

Of social intercourse, 
In strongest light is seen 
Religion's binding force. 
M^rch 4, 1855. 



TO 



'On receiving from her a bouquet as a token of Teconciiiation. 

'T is better when we 've done amiss 

To own it and beg pardon. 
Else we may be assured of this — 

Our conscience it will harden. 
'T is better that our hearts should bleed 

Trom too acute contrition. 
Than fail the monitor- to heed 

And reach a worse condition; 
'T is better that our spirits quail 

From LoA^e's intense emotion, 
Than in an angry storm set sail 

Upon a shoreless ocean. 
'T is better far to feel the pair^ 

That we 've misjudged each other. 
Than to deny and strive in rain 

Our wounded love to smother; 
Or by false alchemy to turn, 

As doth the world of fashion, 
Our love to hatred and thus burn 

•With discord's angry passion. 
We should our angry passions curb, 

And, like our great Exampler, 
Forgive our foes — as fragrant herb 

Yields perfume to its trampler. 

tGen. 2: 18. 



\ 



15 

'T is thus our wounded hearts exhale. 
As do your wilting flowers, 

A sweeter breath than scents the gale 
From pleasure's sunny bowers. 



IMMAKUEL— ''God with us.'* 

. The cooling draught that slakes our parching thirst 

Once blushed to wine to own its Maker near. 
Or, shed for you and me for sin accursed. 

Once laved his cheek in many a falling tear. 
And his breast, too, once heaved w^ith the same air 

We breathe — on w^hich to ear of God are borne 
The horrid oath and penitential prayer — 

Or sighs of such as for their frailties mourn. 
^^'Blood" — 'Svater' — "spirit" — in turn testifies,* 

And conscience all the while doth plead within, 
That God has once sojourned beneath the skies. 

That Heaven is moved for man, the creature's sin. 
And shall they testify and plead in vain? 

Forbid it Thou! who once on earth didst dwell 
And suffer, that man might at last attain 

The bliss of Heaven and shun the pains of Hetl. 

June 13. 1855. 



*lot John, v. 6. 



THE SPIRIT 



We cannot tell how light proceeds 
From sun so quick, in waves or rays; 

We only know that nature needs 
The light — whose colors it displays: 

Much less may we pretend to know 
The modus of the Spirit given — 



16 

How He doth come, how He doth go; — 

We know we need the help of Heayeni- 
And as the light 's not roundaboi^ 

But rectilinear in its course; 
The Spirit too, we cannot doubt. 

Proceeds directly from its source. 
Thy light and quick' ning power impart — 

Impress, Thou Light of better Sun, 
Upon my hard and darkened heart, 

The image of the Holy One. 

Variation of the last verse: 

Thy light and quick'ning power impart — 
Impress, O Holy Photogene,* 

Upon my hard and darkened heart, 
The image of the Great Unseen. 



*Photogene, although I believe it has been proposed as a sci- 
entific term in the Photographic art, to which reference is hers 
made, is, according to its etymology (from phoos, phootos, light, 
and ge7inaoo^ to generate or produce) susceptible of the applica- 
tion I have given it. Milton has so used even a mythological 
name: 

^'Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name, 
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine 
Following, above th' Olympian hill I soar. 
Above the flight of Pegasean Aving: 
The meaning, not the name I call." 

Paradise Lost, Book 7. 



INDEX TO APPENDIX. 



Ne'W Theory of the Flood, .... page I 

Test of Affection, - . . . . . i< n 

I Come Quickly, " 13 

Man should not be a Monk, - . . . « 13 

To ,...-." 14 

Imminuel, --•--.. " 14 

The Spirit, " 15 



P0ST8CRIVT- 



The foregoing ^^Af^^nulU-^' was written on ilie 12tli, and was 
ui tyfje on the 20th June, 1855. Since that time, I have receiv- 
ed my regular numbers of the New York Observer, from which 
I have cut th-e following paragraphs: 

'^The Rings of Saturn. — During the present year, astrono- 
mers are to be on the alert, to decide an important question that 
has lately arisen with respect to the Rings of Satura. Compar- 
ed Avith drawings made two hundred years ago, considerable 
difference is now perceived, as though the rings are gradually 
falling in upon the .body of the 2^Janet,^^—Ne,iv York Observer, 
June 2Sth, 1855. .: ^ ' 

'^A Discovert. — It is said that one of the incidental results 
of the Japan expedition, is the discovery, that the Zodiacal 
Light is a belt extending entirely round the Earth, after the 
manner of Saturn's ring. The matter has excited a good deal 
of interest among the astronomers. Professor Pierce, of Cam- 
bridge, considers the fact established by the observations ta«- 
ken."— .Y. Y. Observer, July 5, 1855. 

'^The Earth's Ring. — The Baltimore Sun states, that the 
Rev. Mr. Jones, a Chaplain in the Navy, is the discoverer of 
the fact, that the Zodiacal light is a ring around the Earth, in- 
side of the Moon's orbit, and probably, in the same plane with 
that orbit. Mr. Jones was on the Japan Expedition, and he 
embraced the occasion to make observations, every morning and 
evening, for two or three years." — N, Y, Observer, July 12, 
1855. 

From the first of these paragraphs, it appears that the planet 
Saturn may be destined to undergo such a flood as our Earth un- 
derwent in the days of Noah — as supposed from analogy, (page 
157,) before the fact referred to in the paragraph was known to 
oie. In regard to the second and third paragraphs, may not the 
^*ring" or *MDelt extending entirely round the Earth, after the 



manner of Satunf s ring,'" Ue tli€ rr^mains c>t ilie '* water abovci 
The firmament," spoken of in Gen. 1: 6, 7, and which I have 
supposed to have once surrounded the Earth "after the manner of 
Saturn's ring," and to have fallen in upon the Earth at the time 
of the Noachian Deluge? If that fluid ring did actually once 
exist, and was composed, as supposed, of that unstable com- 
pound, the binoxyd of hydrogen, or whatever may have been 
its composition, may not some gases evolved from these "super- 
celestial waters," either before, or at the time of the breaking up 
of these "fountains of the great deep," have been the source of 
the/'belt," or "ring," referred to? I know not what may be the 
views of astronomers, as I have seen none of their speculations 
upon the subject; but I suppose this "belt," or "ring," not to 
possess any inherent luminosity, but to produce the phenome- 
non of the Zodiacal light by some modification, of the Sun's 
rays by reflection, refraction or absorption: the ring itself being 
matter in a gaseous or highly attenuated form. But I am 
speculating without sufficient data upon very abstruse subjects, 
and had better descend from my balloon ascension to the Earth 
again. 

July 28, 1855. 



l^'Correct Appendix, page 7, line 28, by reading of instead 
cf if; page 8, line 3, Note, keep, instead of heep) page 10, line 
3S, concentrated for condensed. 




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